Social safety of workers in the construction industry : the case of Hebron and Bethlehem Governorates-Palestine

الملخص EN

Construction sector is one of the leading economic sectors in Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and main contributor to sustainable development.

The sector is low technological and still labour intensive, and workers of this sector are vulnerable to the risks of accidents and loss of social rights.

This paper focuses on the social safety of workers that include work contracts, job security, working hours, disputes, work insurance, salaries and payments, knowledge and familiarity with the Palestinian Labour Law (PLL); through the designation of structured questionnaire and survey random sample of 349 workers.

The findings showed that the unskilled labours are the most marginalized and discriminated group among other jobs in this industry.

In addition, 82.1% of the workers are without written work contracts, 29.7% are working extra time exceeding the max allowable by the labour law, 78.2% are unfamiliar with the PLL, 87.1% are insured against work accidents and 7.2% have work conflict with their employers and claimed to the Ministry of Labour (MoL).

The results also showed that payment of wages took many forms: 54.6% are paid on monthly basis, 20.1% on weekly basis, 7.8% every two weeks and 13.5% irregular depending on the work conditions and progress.

It is concluded that the social safety level in the construction industry is still low, and more monitoring and inspection work is required.