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246
BLAS AS SITES FOR THE MESOLEVEL DYNAMICS OF
INSTITUTIONALIZATION:
A CROSSSECTORAL COMPARISON
Yahel Kurlander* and Avinoam Cohen**
In this Article we seek to shi the focus from the texts of bilateral labor agreements
(BLAs) to the context of their emergence and materialization. We argue that
to study BLAs and evaluate their consequences and potential relevance, they
must be read from the perspective of processes of institutionalization that
shape the paths of dierent agreements. In Israel, a cross-sectoral comparison
of the agricultural and construction sectors reveals that dierent agreements
did not follow the same path and institutionalization process. e Israel-
ailand agreements for the agricultural sector and the agreements regulating
migration to the construction sector did not generate similar dynamics of
institutionalization. In both sectors, BLAs transformed recruitment practices
and led to a sharp decrease of illicit migration costs extracted in the process.
Yet due to dierences in the structure of the sectors and the expected skill
level of workers, signicant variations remain, most notably in the eect
of BLAs on the permit and quota system and in the rise of paths to import
labor outside BLAs. Based on this cross-sectoral comparison, we oer in this
Article a grounded analytical perspective for examining and evaluating BLAs
in context. In discussing our suggestions, we will project our analysis to the
more recent agreement covering the live-in care sector that is currently the
largest employing sector of guest-workers in Israel.
I
In a global mobility order of closed borders and selective immigration restrictions,
1
bilateral labor agreements (BLAs) have reappeared as renewed instruments in the
regulatory apparatus of countries seeking noncitizen, temporary guest-workers.
* Ya hel Kurlander is a Lecturer and a member at the Center for Rural Studies at Tel Hai Academic College
and a researcher at the Traab (ERC) research group.
** Avinoam Cohen is a Lecturer at the Faculty of Law, the College of Management—Academic Studies
and teaches at the Migration Studies Program at TAU and is a research fellow at the Traab (ERC)
research group.
Joint rst authors of equal contribution to the Article.
We thank the members of the Traab research team for ongoing, fruitful collaborative thinking
that contributed to this research in many stages and to the participants in the Bilateral Agreements
conference for thoughtful responses to previous dras. Special thanks are due to Marion Panizzon and
Hila Shamir for their careful reading and extremely helpful comments.
is study was funded by Traab, a research project funded by the European Research Council as part
of the European research and innovation program Horizon (research grant number ) and
by Tel Hai Research and Development Authority Grant and Tel Hai Gender Equity Unit Grant.
1 Hein de Haas et al., Growing Restrictiveness or Changing Selection? e Nature and Evolution of Migration
Policies, I’ M R. ().
246
2022] BLAS AS SITES FOR THE MESO LEVEL DYNAMICS OF INSTITUTIONALIZATION 247
Under the umbrella of immigration and economic development and the agenda of
“planned and well-managed migration policies” that “[f ]acilitate orderly, safe, regular
and responsible migration and mobility of people,”
2
international organizations,
mainly the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the International
Labour Organization (ILO), actively advance BLAs as indicators and best practice
for regulating temporary labor migration.3 Some ministries of overseas workers in
major sending countries have pursued agreements with the main receiving countries,
to address issues that arise in the context of labor migration.
4
In other cases the
initiative was taken by receiving states with the aim of regulating dierent elements
of entry, recruitment and placement of temporary migrant workers through BLAs.5
Historically, BLAs rst emerged to qualify restrictions on immigration and
noncitizen employment introduced in the interwar years,
6
and later proliferated
in the heyday of guest worker programs aer World War II.
7
Workers were then
summoned to ll empty ranks in the production lines of industrialized economies
and BLAs were accordingly tailored to suit labor demands in the receiving states
and declined with the termination of such programs in the s.
8
As compared
to their early predecessors, the renewed interest in and recourse to bilateral labor
agreements seems to be taking a dierent path. Formal cooperation between sending
and receiving states is sought by sending states and promoted by international
organizations as a way to address the recurring problems of temporary low-skill
2 G.A. Res. /, Transforming Our Wor l d : e Agenda for Sustainable Development (Oct. ,
), https://undocs.org/A/RES//.
3 Int’l Org. for Migration, Migration and the Agenda: A Guide for Practitioners (), https://
publications.iom.int/system/les/pdf/sdg_en.pdf; U.N. Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular
Migration (July , ), www.un.org/pga//wp-content/uploads/sites////migration.pdf. See
also Rupa Chanda, Migration between South and Southeast Asia: Role of Interstate Cooperation (Inst.
S. Asian Stud. [ISAS] Wo r k i n g Paper No. -, Feb. ), https://tinyurl.com/xtc; I
D ., I C: A G B A
A H W M (), http://www.aspeninstitute.org/sites/default/les/content/
docs/GHD/GHD_Bilateral_Report.pdf.
Early agreements were entered into in the interwar period and in the postwar years, and a specic
Int’l Lab. Org. [ILO] convention and recommendation on migrant labor were adopted in . ILO,
Recommendation No. concerning Migration for Employment (Revised), (July , ) (includes a
model bilateral and is annexed to U.N. Convention No. concerning Migration for Employment
(Revised), July , , U.N.T.S. ).
4 Marion Panizzon, Bilateral Migration Agreements and the GATS: Sharing Responsibility Versu s Reciprocity,
J. R M I , - (). See also M M G:
T P P (Rahel Kunz et al. eds., ).
5 Avino am Cohen, Transformative Forms: When do Bilateral Labor Agreements Make a Dierence (Jan.
) (unpublished manuscript) (on le with authors).
6 Philip V. Cannistraro & Gianfausto Rosoli, Fascist Emigration Policy in the s: An Interpretive
Framework, I’ M R. , - ( ).
7 Nermin Abadan-Unat, Turkish Migration to Europe, in T C S W M
, (Robin Cohen ed., ); K C, I S : T B P,
I, I.N.S. - () (paperback ed. ).
8 e U.S. Bracero program was terminated in ; a decade later, in the face of the oil shock and a global
economic recession, Germany ceased its recruitment programs as well. See D M .,
W M: U I M E M
-, ().
248 THEORETICAL INQUIRIES IN LAW [Vol. 23.2:246
migration programs (TLMPs). Such programs are infamous for exploitation practices
throughout the migration process, precarious working conditions, irregularity and
other human rights violations, including dierent forms of tracking in persons.9
Still, more cautious observers remain skeptical about the transformative eect of
agreements that are expected to serve the needs of the receiving countries.10
It is our understanding that the relevance and transformative potential of bilateral
agreements for the protection of migrant workers does not depend only on their texts
and forms. eir evolution and design are also a product of meso-level dynamics of
institutionalization, that is, the cumulative processes that establish migration networks
and lead to the incorporation of migrants and migrant labor in societies and domestic
labor markets.11 Beyond the legal scope of agreements and the specicity of their
provisions and implementation protocols, we explore the institutional signicance
of agreements as a product of processes and power dynamics that occur at the
meso-level. is concrete and conceptual domain, involving a range of networks,
actors and intermediaries that operate between the overarching structures of the
macro-level and micro-level decision-making and action by individual agents, is
known to have a decisive inuence over migration patterns.12
Since it is not just the text, but the context that matters, we expect BLAs to
make a dierence when their intervention at the meso-level becomes durable
over time.13 Given that meso-level dynamics are context-specic and vary across
employment sectors even within the same migration regime, our analysis is based on
a cross-sectoral comparison that can capture and underscore contextual variations
and their implications. e Israeli case study is well suited for this purpose, since
during the past decade Israel entered a series of path-breaking BLAs to regulate the
recruitment of overseas migrant workers. ese agreements were an outcome of a
declared policy to channel all guest-workers through the pre-departure screening
and oversight mechanisms of BLAs.14 e policy was intended to cover all workers
9 Daniela Bobeva & Jean-Pierre Garson, Overview of Bilateral Agreements and Other Forms of Labour
Recruitment, in M E: B A C -
(OECD Publication, ); D R A C A, I’ O.
M M P’ I., L M C P C:
G P, C W F (May ), http://www.migrationpolicy.org/
pubs/colomboprocessbrief.pdf; Yuval Livnat & Hila Shamir, Gaining Control? Bilateral Labor Agreements
and the Shared Interest of Sending and Receiving Countries to Control Migrant Wor k e rs and the Illicit
Migration Industry, T I L. ().
10 Aderanti Adepoju et al., Europe’s Migration Agreements with Migrant-Sending Countries in the Global
South: A Critical Review, I’ M , ().
11 Avi no am Cohen, Democracy in Migration: Democratic Encounters in Migration Governance ()
(Ph.D. esis, Tel Aviv University); Yahel Kurlander, e Marketization of Migration—On the Emergence,
Flourishment and Change of the Recruitment Industry for Agricultural Migrant Work e r s from ailand
to Israel () (Ph.D. esis, Haifa University).
12 See also infra notes - and accompanying text.
13 Adam Cox & Eric Posner, e Second Order Structure of Immigration Law, S. L. R. ().
14 Government Resolution, Permits for Employing Foreign Work e r s (July , ), https://www.
gov.il/he/departments/policies/_des.
2022] BLAS AS SITES FOR THE MESO LEVEL DYNAMICS OF INSTITUTIONALIZATION 249
from all countries of origin,
15
and the same inter-ministerial team was entrusted with
the new directive, yet the agreements are sector-specic and their implementation
and eects vary from sector to sector.
e primary, explicit, policy aim of Israeli BLAs was to regularize guest-worker
programs by suppressing illicit recruitment practices and regulating the migration
industry that operates transnationally.
16
Against previous assumptions about the
ungovernability of transnational migration networks of recruiters and intermediaries,
Israel successfully utilized BLAs to expand its regulatory capacity beyond its borders.
It centralized the process of allocating working permits and shied the main screening
process to the ex-ante, pre-migration stage.
17
is unusual achievement, which
overcame or curtailed private migration industry interests, was not mirrored in the
internal domain. e turn to BLAs did not result in enhanced enforcement of labor
law or mandatory working conditions and has had only a minor eect on working
conditions and worker remuneration. Within Israel, employment sectors diered
in the organizational adjustments that followed the recruitment and placement
mechanisms that were established by and within the framework of BLAs.
Understanding the consequences and meso-level sectoral dynamics in which
BLAs intervene eshes out the dierential institutionalization processes and calls for a
context-sensitive approach to evaluating the transformative potential of BLAs—or lack
thereof. Shiing the focus to the context of the agreements reorientates our research
questions. Looking at BLAs as potential interventions at the meso-level of migration
processes, we seek to understand the function of BLAs in the institutionalization of
migrant labor in specic labor market sectors, as for instance in temporary guest-
worker programs. BLAs can (a) trigger institutionalization processes, (b) become
integrated in or reect ongoing institutionalization processes, or (c) remain detached
from such processes. We suggest these typological alternatives as a conceptual
framework for analyzing the embeddedness of BLAs in context. is analytical
approach reects our understanding that BLAs are part of a broader regulatory
framework, and that its analysis requires taking a fuller account of the regulation
of migration, from the pre-migration screening to inclusion in the domestic labor
market and, eventually, return or secondary migration.
15 Government Resolution, Foreign Wor k e rs in the Agriculture Sector (Mar. , ), https://
www.gov.il/he/departments/policies/_des; Government Resolution, Foreign Wo r k ers
and Encouraging the Employment of Israelis (Jan. , ), https://www.gov.il/he/departments/
policies/_des; Government Resolution, e Encouraging of the Employment of Israelis
and Quotas of Foreign Wor k e r s in the Construction Sector and Regulating the Entry of Foreign
Wor k e r s in the Care Sector (Ju ly , ), https://www.gov.il/he/departments/policies/_des;
Government Resolution, Foreign Work e r s Government Policy - Further Discussion (Jan. ,
), https://www.gov.il/he/departments/policies/_des ; Government Resolution, e
Employment of Foreign Wor k e r s in the Agricultural Sector (Sep. , ) https://www.gov.il/he/
departments/policies/_des; Government Resolution, Government Policy on Non-Israeli
Wor k e r s and Increasing Employment Opportunities of Israelis (Aug. , ), https://www.gov.il/he/
departments/policies/_des.
16 Government Resolution, supra note .
17 Cox & Posner, supra note .
250 THEORETICAL INQUIRIES IN LAW [Vol. 23.2:246
e Article proceeds as follows. Part I develops the analytical framework that
draws on institutionalization and meso-level analysis and a sector-based comparison
that considers sectoral characteristics and skill dierences in low-skill migration.
Part II lays out the background for the Israeli case-study and juxtaposes the role
of BLAs in the agricultural and construction sectors. Part III discusses the main
ndings of the comparison and considers their extension to additional sectors, such
as live-in care. e last Part concludes.
I. A F
Since bilateral agreements stem from dierent motivations, it is not surprising that
their outcomes vary and that accounts regarding their desirability are mixed.
18
ere
are some indications that BLAs can facilitate “safe, orderly and regular migration,”
as is expected by promoters of multilateral cooperation and partnerships to enhance
migration governance.
19
BLAs can contribute towards reducing migration costs,
protecting migrant worker rights and regularizing mobility across labor migration
corridors.
20
Yet not all BLAs are similarly eective and some may even carry undesirable
consequences. Receiving countries have utilized bilateral agreements as a means
of entrenching and institutionalizing guest-worker programs that contribute to or
exacerbate precarious working conditions.21 Seen from this perspective, BLAs can
be merely old wine in new bottles.
e recent study of BLAs is gradually charting the current spread and makeup
of bilateral agreements and lling gaps in our understanding of their contexts
and eects. Chilton, Posner and Peters produced new datasets of agreements that
provide macro-level analytical perspectives for examining BLAs as a broad global
phenomenon.
22
Implementation research has employed qualitative methods that add
micro-level analysis and migrant worker perspectives in evaluating the outcomes
of BLAs, as demonstrated in the research of Kushnirovich and Raijman who follow
the Israeli adaptation of BLAs.
23
Missing from the BLA literature is a systemic
account of the meso-level and the potential, or lack thereof, of BLAs to intervene
in meso-level relations and institutions that have a cardinal role in sustaining the
18 Margaret E. Peters, Immigration and International Law, I’ S. ().
19 Global Compact for Migration, supra note , at (Objective ).
20 R R N K, L M R P I:
F R ( ) https://tinyurl.com/fuyy.
21 Peters, supra note .
22 Adam S. Chilton & Eric A. Posner, Why Countries Sign Bilateral Labor Agreements, J. L S.
(); Peters, supra note ; Adam Chilton & Bartek Wo d a , e Expanding Universe of Bilateral Labor
Agreements, T I L. (); Tijana Lujic & Margaret E. Peters, Informalization,
Obfuscation and Bilateral Labor Agreements, T I L. ().
23 Nonna Kushnirovich, et al., e Impac t of Government Regulation on Recruitment Process, Rights,
Wag e s and Working Conditions of Labor Migrants in the Israeli Construction Sector, E. M.
R. (); Nonna Kushnirovich & Rebeca Raijman, Bilateral Agreements, Precarious Wor k , and
the Vulnerability of Migrant Wor k e r s in Israel, T I L. ().
2022] BLAS AS SITES FOR THE MESO LEVEL DYNAMICS OF INSTITUTIONALIZATION 251
everyday dynamics of migration regimes and their patterns.
24
In migration studies,
the meso-level is perceived as a conceptual and concrete space between macro-level
structures and the micro-level of individual agents. At the meso-level, we nd an
“internal dynamics of migration” that occur and expand in “self-feeding processes
of cumulative causation, usually in ways that reinforce existing staying/moving
patterns.”25 Hence, research that is tuned to understanding such dynamics and
processes can focus on migration intermediaries, transnational migratory networks,
social and economic structures of immigrant incorporation, migration corridors, etc.
26
is Article aims to ll the gap by examining BLAs through the trajectories
of institutionalization processes that they trigger or become integrated in at the
meso-level. Institutionalization occurs when social processes are “experienced as
possessing a reality of their own.”
27
In the migration context, institutionalization
occurs, for example, when a guest-worker program becomes a stable element of
an industry or employment sector; when immigration policing and deportation
policies instill uncertainty and precarity in the everyday lives of migration workers;
28
or even when illicit intermediaries create organized and long-lasting paths of
migrant tracking or smuggling. Such social, economic or political processes that
are institutionalized do not have to be formal or ocial to become regularized.
We suggest that the signicance of BLAs is related to their potential contribution
to processes of institutionalization. Following previous work in which we studied
BLAs in context, we aim to evaluate and theorize the institutional eects of bilateral
agreements by examining the meso-level dynamics they partake in.29 Our guiding
research questions are, therefore, whether BLAs contribute to structuration or
institutionalization processes, and what broader insights can be generalized from
specic case-studies.
Meso-level analysis is increasingly utilized in the study of migration and its
institutionalization.
30
In Israel, Kemp and Raijman utilized it to address and explain
the gap between ocial labor migration schemes and contorted outcomes, including
the importation of tracked labor. By identifying actors, mechanisms and structures
they demonstrated how the institutionalized logic at the meso-level contributed
24 Adriana Kemp & Rebecca Raijman, Bringing in State Regulations, Private Brokers, and Local Employers:
A Meso-Level Analysis of Labor Tracking in Israel, I’ M R. ( ).
25 omas Faist, e Crucial Meso-Level, in S S I M
I I , (Marco Martiniello & Jan Rath eds., ).
26 Linn Axelsson et al., Re-visiting the ‘Black Box’ of Migration: State-Intermediar y Co-production of
Regulatory Spaces of Labour Migration, J. E M S. (); Sophie Cranston
et al., New Directions in Exploring the Migration Industries: Introduction to Special Issue, J. E
M S. (); M P. S M B, C A B:
T P T E M ().
27 P L. B T L, T S C R: A T
S K ( ).
28 Rebeca Raijman & Adrian Kemp, e Institutionalization of Labor Migration in Israel, A a
().
29 Cohen, supra note ; Kurlander, supra note .
30 Julien Debonneville, An Organizational Approach to the Philippine Migration Industry : Recruiting,
Matching and Tailoring Migrant Domestic Workers, () C. M S. (); Irene
Bloemraad et al., Immigrant Organization, A. R. S. (forthcoming ).
252 THEORETICAL INQUIRIES IN LAW [Vol. 23.2:246
to the emergence of irregular migratory practices, including human tracking.31
Whereas their convincing analysis focused on the national migration regime, we aim
to take this understanding a step further by eshing out sectoral variations within
the broad labor migration regime. e Israeli migration regime is not monolithic.
Apart from dierences that relate to the specicities of clientelist constellations in
each sector, we expect to nd distinct trajectories of meso-level transformations due
to dierences in anticipated skill levels. Although both construction and agriculture
are regarded as low-skill sectors tted for temporary guest-worker policies, there is
a signicant dierence in the perception of skills within each sector. While workers
in construction are regarded as professionals and expected to arrive with a specic
skill set, the agricultural sector does not expect specic skills or expertise.32
As the case study will demonstrate, the dierence in the signicance accorded to
skill in each sector is reected in the presence or absence of skill tests embedded in
the recruitment processes, before and within the institutional frameworks provided
by BLAs. Yet its importance is not limited to the proles of prospective workers.
It is consequential for determining permit quotas in each sector and, at the other
end, in creating bypasses for recruiting workers outside BLAs. It is also reected in
the dierent functions of meso-level intermediaries and therefore also in the place
of BLAs in sectoral processes of institutionalization. is relationship between the
perception of and remuneration for skill and the organization of the employment
sector at the meso-level are more apparent in the live-in care sector
33
with its
characteristic gendered markers.
34
ese aspects, which will be addressed in the
discussion, further underscore the distinctive eects of BLAs as a factor in the
specicity and the institutional organization of respective employment sectors.
II. T I C S:
A C-S C
e construction and agricultural sectors in Israel have been historically dependent
on the cheap labor of noncitizens and, expectedly, were the rst to turn to overseas
31 Kemp & Raijman, supra note , at -.
32 For the construction sector, see .. Procedure for Skill Testing and Selection of Overseas Foreign
Wor k e r s for the Construction Sector in Countries of Origin (updated July , ), https://www.gov.
il/he/departments/policies/exams_for_construction_workers_in_their_origin_country; in agriculture
informal capabilities test were conducted by recruitment companies in the past, but it has not been
standardized, see Yahel Kurlander, On the Establishment of the Agricultural Migration Industr y in Is-
rael’s Countryside, G R. F. (forthcoming ); Matan Kaminer, e Oksana Aair:
Ambiguous Resistance in an Israeli Warehouse, () E ().
33 Eileen Lagman, Moving Labor: Transnational Migrant Wor k e rs and Aective Literacies of Care, L
C. S. ( ); Jenna Hennebry & Margaret Walton-Roberts, Rebalancing Act: Promoting an
International Research Agenda on Wo m e n Migrant Care Wo r ker s’ Health and Rights, in A R
A M H (Bruce Newbold & Kathi Wilson eds., ).
34 Hanny Ben-Israel, e Fragile String to Life Itself: Labor, Migration and Care between Altruism and
Instrumentalism (unpublished MA esis, Tel Aviv University, ) (on le with authors).
2022] BLAS AS SITES FOR THE MESO LEVEL DYNAMICS OF INSTITUTIONALIZATION 253
migrant workers.35 ey were also the rst sectors in which BLAs were signed and
implemented in Israel and are therefore the axis of the cross-sectoral comparison
provided in this section. e comparison will proceed as follows. Subpart II.A lays
out the contextual background of both employment sectors, against which subpart
II.B recounts the main milestones in the entry of overseas migrant labor and in
the evolution of a permit quota system for the regulation of domestic temporary
low-skill migration programs (TLMPs) that are designated for overseas laborers,
setting the stage for the use of BLAs. We then turn to assessing the meso-level
intervention of BLAs in each sector. Subpart II.C oers a closer analysis of meso-
level institutionalization processes in each sector; and II.D addresses the bypasses
that have undermined the achievements of BLAs in dierent ways.
A. e Arrival of Noncitizen Workers to the National Labor Market in Israel
e construction and agricultural sectors in Israel are part and parcel of the Jewish-
Zionist narrative. rough the early years of Jewish immigration and the establishment
of the State of Israel, manual labor in construction and agriculture was idealized as
participation in nation-building. Early on, however, these sectors came to rely on the
employment of precarious workers. First were the Palestinian/Arab minority, who
were subject to a permit regime for employment outside their areas of residence until
the end of military rule, which lasted until . Aer , Palestinian residents
of the Occupied Territories began to commute daily, with and without permits,
lling the ranks in the lower tiers of these employment sectors. By the s, circa
thousand Palestinians, nearly half of which were permit holders, made up
approximately to % of the working force in Israel. According to Bartram, up to
% of all employees in agriculture and % of all employees in construction were
Palestinian residents of the Occupied Territories.36
From the end of the s, agricultural producers, construction companies and
the powerful agricultural lobby sought to reduce their reliance on the Palestinian
labor force and began to exert cliental pressure on the Israeli government to allow
the entry of overseas migrant workers. Due to a combination of factors, ranging from
security and control considerations to welfare state reorganization and retrenchment,
the drive succeeded.37 From the early s, the share of oversea migrant workers
grew steadily and partially substituted for Palestinians employed in construction
and agriculture.
35 A K R R, M W: T P E
L M I - () (Isr.).
36 David V. Bartram, Foreign Wor k e r s in Israel: History and eory, I’ M R. ,
().
37 K R, supra note , at -.
254 THEORETICAL INQUIRIES IN LAW [Vol. 23.2:246
Table II.a: Employees in the Agricultural Sector, -.
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
1960
1962
1964
1966
1968
1970
1972
1974
1976
1978
1980
1982
1984
1986
1988
1990
1992
1994
1996
1998
2000
2002
2004
2006
2008
2010
2012
2014
2016
2018
Israeli Citizens Palestinian Workers Migrant Workers
* Data generated based on Central Bureau of Statistics Annual Reports.
Table II.b: Employees in the Construction Sector, -.
0
50
100
150
200
250
1975
1980
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
Israeli Citizens Palestinian Workers Migrant Workers
* Data generated based on the Central Bureau of Statistics Annual Reports.
e data shows that the entry of overseas migrant workers changed the composition
of the labor force in both sectors. Yet it also demonstrates the dierent paths of
migrant labor into each of the sectors. In agriculture, the entry of overseas migrant
workers came together with the rapid decline in the numbers of Israeli agricultural
2022] BLAS AS SITES FOR THE MESO LEVEL DYNAMICS OF INSTITUTIONALIZATION 255
producers. As Table II.a demonstrates, half of all workers in agriculture are noncitizens,
while the number of self-employed has dropped to a fourth of its level in . is
growing, extensive reliance on migrant workers is also reected in the permit quotas,
as shall be explained below. Meanwhile, as shown in Table II.b, the number of Israeli
workers in construction has grown over the years, while the overall share of overseas
migrant workers remains limited and the number of Palestinian commuters has
uctuated and risen aer the decline of violence in the territories under military
occupation. us, dierential internal dynamics and modes of production that vary
from one sector to the other have contributed to overall outcomes that dier as well.
Laying out the contours of TLMPs in Israel cannot be completed without reference
to live-in care, which for the past two decades has been the largest employing sector
of migrant workers. Overseas care workers arrived in the s, alongside migrant
workers in the construction and agricultural sectors.38 Yet the evolution of the care
sector has taken a dierent course. Unlike sectors that had been previously reliant
on Palestinian, predominantly male commuters, the model of live-in care workers
emerged with the arrival of overseas, predominantly women migrant workers.
39
e creation of this designated labor sector was triggered by the inclusion of home
nursing insurance in the Social Security Law in .
40
is law grants social benets
to support elderly and disabled persons so they can remain in their homes and
communities. e low social security benets proscribed by the new home nursing
insurance program increased the reliance on migrant workers, who characteristically
took on the dicult and demeaning tasks of live-in caregivers for low salaries. e
rise of manpower companies and the growing segmentation of the Israeli labor
market contributed further to a steady rise in the entry of migrant workers, most
notably women from the Philippines.41
In contrast to the construction and agricultural sectors, where there was pressure
to increase sector productivity and reduce the reliance on noncitizen workers, no
similar policy restricted the rise in the number of migrant care-workers in Israel.
ere is no quota limit on entry and employment permits, as the sole criterion are
dependency tests conducted by the National Social Security Institute. As a result, the
care sector grew steadily and became the dominant employer of migrant workers,
authorized and unauthorized alike.42
38 Population and Immigration Authority [PIBA], Data on Foreigners in Israel—Summary of (Mar.
) (Isr.), https://www.gov.il/he/departments/publications/reports/foreign_workers_stats_.
39 R K, supra note .
40 Amendment no. , Social Security Law, - , SH , (Isr.), https://www.nevo.co.il/
law_html/law/_.htm.
41 K R, supra note , at .
42 By the end of , the live-in care sector employed over thousand workers (circa % of all authorized
migrant workers in Israel) and over thousand unauthorized workers (circa % of all unauthorized
workers). PIBA, supra note .
256 THEORETICAL INQUIRIES IN LAW [Vol. 23.2:246
B. e Emergence and Evolution of TLMPs: e Permit and Quota System in
Agriculture and Construction and the introduction of BLAs
e changing composition of the workforce in agriculture and construction is not
simply a consequence of supply and demand dynamics. Since the entry of noncitizen
workers is conditioned on specic permits and employment restrictions, the Israeli
immigration regime plays a signicant role in structuring secondary labor market
sectors within which these workers are employed. Immigration and labor market
policies were implemented through the combination of a permit and quota system,
serving as a key regulatory method whereby the government determines the scope,
makeup, and employment domains of guest-worker programs.
43
Formally, the
permit and quota regime applies across all sectors and to all noncitizens. Yet the
process of determining quotas in each sector varies signicantly. In construction
and agriculture, the quota was set in in each sector as an outcome of its specic
meso-level dynamics and political-economic organization. By contrast, in the care
sector no signicant limits have restrained the steady rise of quotas for the past
three decades.44
Another prevalent category distinction is that between the permit regime that
applies to overseas workers and the military-based permit regime to which Palestinian
commuters are subjected.
45
Given the dierence in legal structures and political logic
operating against the backdrop of government policies and the institutionalization
of these permit regimes,
46
BLAs apply only to the recruitment and placement of
overseas guest-workers. Although this Article addresses institutionalization processes
that involve BLAs, nonetheless the dierent segments of the overall regime are not
completely separated, as the tables above have demonstrated.
A closer examination of the dierences between the quotas for overseas migrant
workers shows how volatile the quota in construction is as compared to that in
agriculture. In both cases, however, the realities on the ground seem to contradict
declared governmental policies of limiting the reliance on migrant labor.
47
is
is evident not only in the context of agriculture, where the stability of the quota
does not coincide with a limited-migration policy. In the context of construction,
where the government succeeded in reducing quotas and the presence of migrant
workers to a minimum, quotas nonetheless have been rising steadily since . In
both sectors there remains a gap between policy and implementation with respect
to the steady or growing numbers of overseas workers, as is oen the case where
43 K R, supra note , at .
44 Hila Shamir, Migrant Care Wo r ker s in Israel: Between Family, Market, and State, I S. R.
().
45 Y B, T B O: T P R W B,
- (); Y B, B R L S E: T F
J I R - ( ).
46 K R, supra note , at .
47 Zvi Eckstein, Committee on Employment Policy Final Report (), https://www.tau.ac.il/~yashiv/
eckstein.pdf; Zvi Eckstein, Committee on Employment Policy Final Report (), https://www.boi.
org.il/he/Research/Pages/papers_paperh.aspx.
2022] BLAS AS SITES FOR THE MESO LEVEL DYNAMICS OF INSTITUTIONALIZATION 257
declared, restrictive immigration policies are frustrated by conicting clientelist
and interest group politics that undermine exclusive policies.48 In Israel, organized
employer interest groups are constantly negotiating the level of quotas, ever since
this regulatory regime was introduced. eir main counterparts at the governmental
level are the Ministry of Finance and Population and the Immigration and Borders
Authority (PIBA) at the Ministry of the Interior, with varying support of other
ministries, such as the Agricultural Ministry and the Ministry of Trade and Labor.
Only seldom have the negotiations over quotas become public, when employer
organizations, most commonly agricultural producers, turned to public campaigns
in order to preserve their quota against governmental pressures.49
Table II.c: Number of Authorized Overseas Migrant Workers under the Quota
and Permit System.
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
Construction Agriculture
* Data based on the number of authorized migrant workers and generated from published PIBA
reports. ese gures do not include the number of foreign students (in agriculture) and workers
of foreign construction companies, discussed below.
When Israel rst became a recipient of global transnational labor migration, it
refused to regulate that migration through BLAs.50 Initially the government was
48 Stephen Castles, Why Immigration Policies Fail, E R S. ().
49 Shimon Shoshani, Committee for the Evaluation of the Foreign Wor k e rs in the Live-in Care Sector:
Intermediaries, Handling and Recruitment (Sept. ), https://tinyurl.com/ujkb; see generally
Avi no am Cohen, Migration Policy and the Labor Market, in A A A-T
A P: A P M B L A T (TraLab
Research Group Policy Paper, Tel Aviv University, Hila Shamir & Maayan Niezna eds., ) (Isr.),
https://tinyurl.com/znx.
50 Ze’ev Rosenhek, Migration Regimes, Intra-State Conicts and the Politics of Inclusion and Exclusion:
Migrant Wor k e rs in the Israeli Welfare State, S. P. (). Back in , Israel declined a
258 THEORETICAL INQUIRIES IN LAW [Vol. 23.2:246
concerned about establishing any direct or even indirect responsibility for employment
relations.51 Indeed, even the preliminary attempt to enter into an agreement with
ailand was originally couched as one between ailand and the IOM, and the
government of Israel was not intended to be a direct part of the agreement.52
Yet with the understanding that overseas migrant workers would remain an
integral part of the labor market, and in view of the persistent enforcement decits,
the government gradually began to reconsider its longstanding unilateral approach.
In , determined to “prevent the abuse of foreign workers and collection of
exaggerated recruitment fees,” the Israeli government decided that agreements should
guarantee that recruitment is conducted diligently, instructing that recruitment be
supervised by the IOM and that permits only be allocated to workers recruited under
such an arrangement.53 In the ensuing period, Israel negotiated and entered a set
of BLAs with sending countries. BLAs are sector-specic, and they have gradually
come to address all areas of temporary guest-worker programs. Agriculture was
the rst eld in which agreements were reached and implemented, followed by a
set of agreements in the construction sector. Additionally, recent agreements that
are yet to be implemented will regulate guest-worker programs in the hospitality
and care sectors.
e evidence accumulated since the inception of the BLAs shows a clear positive
eect on exploitative recruitment practices. Where BLAs were implemented there
has been a drastic reduction of recruitment fees.
54
Indeed, BLAs have registered
notable achievements in countering illicit recruitment practices and expanding to all
guest-worker programs. As the case of Palestinian workers suggests, however, they
provide only partial coverage of the eld. In addition, and as we shall demonstrate
below, even in terms of overseas migrant workers, additional paths have been created
that circumvent the regulatory reach of BLAs.
C. Meso-Level Institutionalization—Agriculture and Construction Compared
e reliance of the agricultural and construction sectors on overseas migrants led to
the development of complex meso-level networks of recruitment and placement of
workers. Organized migration industries operated in both sectors, linking informal
intermediaries as well as recruitment and manpower agencies in the sending state
and in Israel. e power of private recruitment and manpower agencies in this system
proposal to enter into such an agreement with the Philippines. See Stella Go, Fighting for the Rights of
Migrants Wor k ers: e Case of the Philippines, in M E, B A
C , , (OECD ed., ).
51 Kurlander, supra note , at -.
52 Cohen, supra note , at -.
53 Government Resolution, supra note .
54 Mina Zemach, Migrant Wor k ers in Israel: Characteristics of their Entry, Working and Living Conditions—
the Impact of Bilateral Labor Agreements - (July ), https://tinyurl.com/pdpup; R
R N K, T E B A: R,
R S R, L E C M W
A, C C S I, - (), https://
tinyurl.com/sfnun; R K, supra note .
2022] BLAS AS SITES FOR THE MESO LEVEL DYNAMICS OF INSTITUTIONALIZATION 259
derived rst and foremost from state regulation. Avoiding direct responsibility for
temporary migrant workers, the state apparatus turned to a mode of governance from
a distance. It institutionalized the role of private agencies, with minimal enforcement
of employment practices on the ground.
55
Once agencies were registered and formally
regulated, they were also entrusted with the distribution and allocation of working
permits, without eective governmental monitoring.
56
is combination strengthened
the position of intermediaries seeking rents from the migration process. Contrary
to formal policies that sought to limit and regularize guest-worker programs, illicit
recruitment, including the extraction of prohibitive fees in the countries of origin,
continued. Although such practice was prohibited by law and regulations that applied
to the recruitment and placement agencies within and outside Israel,
57
enforcement
was lacking. Until BLAs were entered into and implemented, the collection of illegal
recruitment fees was standard practice in all migration corridors and across all
sectors of recruitment and employment.
In terms of the recruitment segment of the migration industry, the BLAs that
were implemented, rst in agriculture and later in construction, were path-breaking.
In its attempt to regularize recruitment and prevent any turn to irregularity aer
migration, the government became deeply involved in institutionalizing the migration
recruitment process. e recruitment processes anchored in BLAs transformed
previous practice by channeling workers to formal mechanisms that do not require
additional, illegal payment.58
On closer inspection, however, the institutionalization of recruitment in
agriculture and construction followed dierent paths. In agriculture, the migration
industry exerted political and legal pressure to challenge the policy directive that
threatened to cut o its prots, but within less than a decade a BLA with ailand
was implemented. e new recruitment mechanism introduced new actors to the
migration processes, leading to a comprehensive reorganization at the meso-level.59
In ailand, oversight functions were assigned to the IOM oces in cooperation
with the ai labor oce. In Israel, a civil-society organization of sorts, CIMI (the
Center for International Migration and Integration), an organization established
by the JDC (Jewish Joint Distribution Committee), was contracted to support the
connection with the IOM, operate a designated hotline for workers arriving under
the BLAs, and follow the agreements with evaluative research. As the transnational
ties of the private recruitment agencies were severed, many of them went out of
business. e Israeli-ailand BLA centralized the recruitment of workers and
55 Lea Pilowski, Present and Absent: A Study of Manpower Companies, eir Handling of Migrant Worke r s
in Israel, and their Relationship with the State, in T N W: W E F
C I (Ruvi Nathanson & Lea Achdut eds., ) (Isr.).
56 Kemp & Raijman, supra note .
57 Employing Work e r s by Manpower Agencies Law, - , LSI ( ) (Isr.), https://www.nevo.
co.il/law_html/law/_.htm; Employment Service Regulations (Payment of Job Seeker for
Employment Intermediation), -, LR () (Isr.), https://www.nevo.co.il/law_html/
law/_.htm.
58 R K, supra note .
59 Kurlander, supra note .
260 THEORETICAL INQUIRIES IN LAW [Vol. 23.2:246
channeled it through a novel cooperative entity, known as TIC (ailand Israel
Cooperation on the Placement of Workers). In ailand, recruitment was originally
handled by the ailand oce of the IOM. With the benet of path dependence, the
TIC endured even when in the IOM withdrew from its activities in the Israel-
ailand corridor and handed over responsibility to the ailand Labor Ministry.
60
e trajectory of BLAs in the construction sector was dierent. e meso-level
organization of the eld had been transformed earlier, when a previous system
that bound migrant workers to their employers was changed to employment by
designated manpower companies. In this case, court-based litigation concerned with
the exploitation of workers coincided with government-driven regulatory reforms
guided by zero-migration policies. As a result, the government led a regulatory
reform that required all workers in construction to be employed through sole
purpose manpower companies. By adopting this new regulatory framework, the
Ministry of Finance sought to resolve enforcement decits in the eld, while critics
of the binding system hoped it will weaken the reliance of workers on employers
and ameliorate the conditions of precarious employment.61 In , a government
resolution rearmed an inter-ministerial committee report that recommended
a reform of the guest-worker program in construction, including the system of
employment and permit allocation to employers.62 New regulations were issued in
, setting out a system of employment through designated manpower companies.
Soon thereaer, the Supreme Court struck down the binding system, ruling that it
was prone to exploitation.63 As these regulatory developments occurred, there was
a steep decline in worker quotas and a successful enforcement drive was conducted
against unauthorized migrant workers. Confronted by a changing regulatory climate,
the Israeli construction sector had to adjust, and designated manpower companies
soon entered the eld. Early on, such companies were established, in which
migrant workers registered as employees. is gure has remained relatively stable
over the years.
64
As compared to the institutionalization processes in the agricultural
sector, the meso-level transformations in construction occurred in the internal
domain. e established migration industry continued unabated, as recruitment
fees continued to rise. Moreover, the rst BLAs signed, with Bulgaria and Romania,
had only a minimal eect on the composition of the labor market.65
60 Nanchanok Wongsamuth, Labour Abuse Fears Rise for ai Migrant Work e r s in Israel Under New Deal,
R T J P (July , ), https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/labor-abuse-fears-
rise-for-thai-migrant-workers-in-israel-under-new-deal-.
61 Inter-ministerial Report on the Planning the Employment System of Foreign Worke r s in Israel and
Conditions for Allocating Permits for Employing Foreign Wor k e r s (Andorn Committee) (Aug. ),
https://tinyurl.com/mtvcyuma.
62 Government Resolution, Migrant Wor k e r s’ Employment Arrangements (Aug. , ), https://
www.gov.il/he/departments/policies/_des.
63 HCJ / Kav Laoved (Wor ker Hotline) v. e Government of the State of Israel PD () ().
64 PIBA, List of Manpower Companies Employing Foreign Construction Wo r k e rs (), https://www.
gov.il/BlobFolder/policy/authorized_corp_constructions/he/auth_corps_oct.pdf.
65 Nonna Kushnirovich et al., e Impact of Government Regulation on Recruitment Process, Rights, Wage s
and Working Conditions of Labor Migrants in the Israeli Construction Sector, E. M. R.
().
2022] BLAS AS SITES FOR THE MESO LEVEL DYNAMICS OF INSTITUTIONALIZATION 261
While textual examination of the respective BLAs in agriculture and in construction
reveals only minor distinctions, their roles in the institutionalization dynamics are not
equivalent. Whereas BLAs in agriculture impacted the migration industry, they did
not have similar eects in construction where they facilitated the re-expansion of the
guest-worker program through a steady rise of the permit quota and diversication
of the countries of origin to include China, Ukraine, and Moldova. In agriculture,
by contrast, BLAs had only a minimal impact on this aspect of migration policy.
ailand remains the main source country and we have seen the quotas remain
largely unchanged. Finally, in both sectors BLAs provide only partial coverage
despite ocial policies that require all migrant workers to be channeled through
BLA-based mechanisms.
D. Construction and Agriculture—Bypassing BLAs
Both in construction and in agriculture, paths to lling the empty ranks of low-tier
jobs were created long before BLAs were adopted. A trainee program in agriculture
has operated in Israel since the s and foreign construction companies that
employ posted workers have been authorized to operate since the mid-s. Since
both programs are still in existence, they bypass the formal policy of sole reliance
on BLAs for admitting migrant workers. ey may therefore preserve problematic
recruitment and employment practices, in terms of prohibitive recruitment fees,
de facto expansion of sector-based quotas, and the reappearance of problematic
binding practices.66
In agriculture, an age-old trainee system was established under the Ministry
of Foreign Aairs, as a means of delivering technical aid to developing countries
and gaining diplomatic support. Over the years, various non-state agents have
been involved in the implementation of the trainee program. Yet since the turn of
the millennium, even more signicantly in the past decade, the training courses
oered to international students from Asia, Africa and Latin America have become
a path to bypassing BLAs. Students arrive for a period of months under working
visas and are only allowed to work as trainees in agriculture. Dierent indications
of the real nature of these programs suggest that students pay excessive migration
fees, including in the form of tuition, but become de facto workers. Moreover, the
entry into force of the Israel-ailand BLA seems to have accelerated the rise in
the number of trainees working in agriculture.
66 Kurlander, supra note .
262 THEORETICAL INQUIRIES IN LAW [Vol. 23.2:246
Table II.d: Students (Trainees) in Agriculture, –.
691
750
1046
1297
1815
2708
3623
3623
3631
3640
3992
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
4000
4500
5000
2008 -
2009
2009 -
2010
2010 -
2011
2011-
2012
2012 -
2013
2013 -
2014
2014 -
2015
2015 -
2016
2016 -
2017
2017 -
2018
2018 -
2019
In fact, subsequent government resolutions have raised the student-trainee cap to
,, adding it to an extended BLA-based guest-worker program cap, and directed
that a designated administration be set up for handling student-trainees.
67
By ,
these resolutions were followed by regulations that require student-trainees to be
handled by designated companies, of which are already active.68
In construction, the path for foreign construction companies to operate in Israel
and post their workers was opened in , with the entry of the Turkish-based
company Yilmazlar. e company’s ongoing activity in Israel was later extended under
a bilateral procurement agreement between Israel and Turkey. Twenty years later, in
the wake of the slow implementation of BLAs in construction, it became a model
that was extended to additional construction companies. A series of government
resolutions armed this turn and changed the method of regulating foreign companies
from a government-to-government approach to a market, tender-based approach.
e number of posted workers has more than doubled since and exceeded
, by the end of .
69
e growth potential of this sector is signicant:
companies are currently active in Israel, each authorized to post up to workers,
and the government has authorized the operation of up to foreign construction
companies.70 As in agriculture, the growing reliance on foreign companies, mostly
Chinese-based, circumvents the BLA-based path of guest-worker programs and their
recruitment and placement protocols. Furthermore, it allows the de facto binding
67 Government Resolution, Governmental Policy in the Subject of Employment of Non-Israeli’s
and Government Decision Amendments (Jan. , ), https://www.gov.il/he/Departments/policies/
dec_; Government Resolution, Foreign Trainees in the Agriculture Sector and Government
Decision Amendments (Dec. , ), https://www.gov.il/he/departments/policies/dec_.
68 PIBA, Regulations on Student-Trainees in Agriculture (May , ), https://www.gov.il/he/departments/
policies/foreign_trainees_in_agriculture.
69 PIBA, supra note .
70 Government Resolution, Increasing the Pool of Foreign Construction Companies (July , ),
https://www.gov.il/he/departments/policies/dec_.
2022] BLAS AS SITES FOR THE MESO LEVEL DYNAMICS OF INSTITUTIONALIZATION 263
of workers to their employers, with evidence suggesting that it can indeed lead to
exploitation that even amounts to tracking in persons.
is Part has explored the parallel institutionalization paths of the agricultural
and construction sectors as sites of TLMPs, highlighting both the similarities
and the variations. In both sectors, BLAs appeared as governmental, top-down
regulatory attempts to intervene in the meso-level organization of the respective
sector. In agriculture, the migration industry was substantially challenged by the
new regulatory scheme, leading to a decade-long, and eventually failed, struggle
to stall the implementation of the BLA. Yet in both sectors bypassing routes were
gradually created, letting in new actors and limiting the reach and coverage of BLAs
in the internal, domestic domain.
III. D F E
e BLAs entered into by the Israeli government in agriculture and construction
succeeded in centralizing the recruitment processes that occur within their ambit
and shiing the selection of migrants to the pre-departure stage. e government
thereby sought to overcome problems related to informal and unauthorized migration,
including the exploitation of workers by employers, which were associated with the
recruitment fees incurred in the migration process.71 e reduction of migration
costs and removal of illicit agents of the migration industry from the migration
process was expected to clear the system of irregularities, which undermined the
declared scope of the TLMPs and were also a source of constant critique levelled
against governmental conduct in the eld.
Yet the distinctive organization of dierent employment sectors suggests that
BLAs with similar aims do not perform equally. Indicative in this respect is the new
agreement covering the live-in care sector, entered into in with the Philippines
and implemented from July . To allow ex-ante screening, the agreement stipulates
that live-video interviews should be conducted, and such practice had indeed been
adopted even before the agreement came into force. ese interviews are conducted
by prospective employers who are concerned about the anticipated “t” of live-in
care workers rather than their skill. Facilitating the interviews are the manpower
agencies that. regardless of an embedded conict of interest, handle both ends of the
live-in care employment relations. As in agriculture (and unlike in construction),
migrant workers are directly employed by individual employers and are expected
to become an integral part of their households. Since BLAs in the live-in care
sector are in their preliminary stages of implementation and the decisive majority
of workers are not covered by the agreements, it is still too early to include this
71 In , the Israeli Supreme Court justied the binding of posted workers to a foreign construction
company, explaining that unlike in the general case of migrant workers who have paid excessive
recruitment fees, workers that did not incur migration costs (according to the agreement that permitted
the operation of the foreign company) can leave if problems arise regarding working conditions. HCJ
/ Hotline for Migrant Work e r s v. e Government of Israel PD () (Sept. , ).
264 THEORETICAL INQUIRIES IN LAW [Vol. 23.2:246
signicant case in the present comparative analysis. With the maturation of these
agreements, however, they may supplement the present study with an important
additional layer of comparison.
We suggested at the outset that BLAs can (a) trigger institutionalization processes,
(b) become integrated in or reect ongoing institutionalization processes, or (c)
remain detached from such processes. In Israel, the processes leading to the BLAs
covering TLMPs for the agricultural sector triggered institutionalization processes.
e meso-level was reorganized to include new actors, accommodate the change
in the role of governments, and exclude migration industry actors seeking rents
from the migration process. In the construction sector changes had begun before
the BLAs materialized and BLAs were integrated in the process, leading eventually
to an increase in the quota of TLMPs in construction. e consequence of BLAs
in the live-in care sector remains to be seen, given the unique characteristics of
the sector and its strong inclination to achieve an employer-employee “t” that is
not simply about objective skill and is easier to achieve ex-post. Indeed, as regards
the live-in care sector, what has been most conducive to bypassing the BLAs is the
relative toleration of unauthorized employment and recurrent amnesties for workers
with authorized employers.
Projecting the ndings of the comparison between the agricultural and construction
sectors on the potential consequences of the agreement that covers live-in care
raises further questions regarding institutionalization processes in the meso-level
organization of the eld. Whereas the migration industry in agriculture could be
separated from the economy of agricultural production; and designated companies in
construction employ migrant workers directly; the economic viability of manpower
companies in the live-in care sector is more dependent on the simultaneous handling
of employers and employees.72 We therefore anticipate that the endemic problems
of the care sector, which arise from the dual role of manpower companies that
exacerbate workers’ vulnerability, will be more dicult to resolve through BLAs
that focus on heavy regulation of the pre-departure phase.
A dierent, emerging case study in the Israeli context will be found in the
hospitality sector. Previously an employer of precarious, noncitizen workers but not
a target for TLMPs, a new BLA with the Philippines entered into in opened
a new corridor for overseas migrant workers. As in the case of construction, the
availability of BLAs justied the turn to TLMPs and a newly instated quota of
workers. However, as the meso-level organization of this sector as a recipient of
migrant workers is in its early stages, it remains to be seen whether and how BLAs
will interact with its institutionalization processes.
72 Yahel Kurlander, Private Companies and Manpower Corporation, in A A A-T
A P: A P M B L A T (TraLab
Research Group Policy Paper, Te l Aviv University, Hila Shamir & Maayan Niezna eds., ) (Isr.),
https://tinyurl.com/znx.
2022] BLAS AS SITES FOR THE MESO LEVEL DYNAMICS OF INSTITUTIONALIZATION 265
C
In this Article we sought to explore the place of BLAs in relation to the institutionalization
processes they induce or are integrated in, positing that BLAs would make a dierence
when their intervention at the meso-level can become durable over time. Juxtaposing
the construction and agricultural sectors has shown how a general policy directive,
implemented through the BLA framework, did not generate coherent results.
While BLAs had similar eects on the extraction of illicit recruitment fees, in both
sectors bypasses were created, reintroducing problems that the BLAs aimed to
resolve. e minor eect of BLAs over employment practices in Israel is coupled by
further segmentation of the labor market by additional categories of employment,
including Palestinian commuters, agricultural trainees and posted construction
workers, who enter their respective sectors outside the regulatory framework of
BLAs. Divergences are also apparent in the organization of the meso-level. Such
is the case of permit quotas, which remained stable in agriculture while steadily
rising in construction. e coverage of BLAs in their respective sectors also diers,
as the entry of foreign construction companies with their posted workers outweighs
the student-trainee path in agriculture, in terms of its dominance and potential
expansion. e tender processes through which construction companies enter the
eld also stand in contrast to the tightly regulated programs in agriculture. Where
the latter demonstrates unusual centralization and state dominance in the eld,
the opening of the gates to posted workers in tender-based processes suggests a
dierent state-market alignment.
e meso-level organization of guest-worker programs in agriculture and
construction as well as the dierent paths of institutionalization of these sectors,
within and outside BLAs, resists a simple classication of agreements. It suggests that
context, rather than text, is the key to evaluating the benets, limits and diculties of
utilizing BLAs for the regulation of temporary migrant labor programs. While BLAs
tend to focus on both ends of the migration continuum—enhancing pre-departure
screening and facilitating return—our analysis suggests that they cannot be detached
from the internal domain and its specic dynamics. In this context we posited that
without addressing the dual role of manpower companies that exacerbate workers’
vulnerability in the live-in care sector, heavy regulation of the pre-departure phase
will not resolve the persistent problems of the eld.
Agreements that involve meso-level actors in the regulatory process and address
critical aspects of the institutionalization of migration programs can overcome
implementation obstacles, as demonstrated by the BLAs in agriculture. At the other
end, neglecting dierent segments of the migration continuum can lead to the
sidelining of BLAs and the creation of bypasses that undermine their achievements.
If BLAs are to be signicant and endure over time, they must be more thoroughly
embedded in their sectoral contexts and address the meso-level institutionalization
processes in which they intervene.
