ISRAEL: Asian restaurants go on an egg roll strike, protesting plans to deport Asian chefs and cooks

Record ID: 339089

  • Title: ISRAEL: Asian restaurants go on an egg roll strike, protesting plans to deport Asian chefs and cooks
  • Date: 17th February 2008
  • Summary: (L!1) TEL AVIV, ISRAEL (FEBRUARY 12, 2008) (REUTERS) WIDE OF ENTRANCE TO GIRAFFE NOODLE BAR IN TEL AVIV POSTER HUNG ON ENTRANCE TO RESTAURANT
  • Embargoed: 3rd March 2008 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Israel
  • Country: Israel
  • Topics: International Relations,Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA1ARVBPMV6IRIOFORDDCFZKGUZ
  • Story Text: Israel's Asian restaurants went on a one-day egg roll strike on Tuesday (February 12, 2008) in protest over government plans to rid kitchens of foreign chefs, and said sushi and noodles would be next to go.
    The restaurants are protesting government plans to purge Japanese, Chinese and Thai eateries of Asian cooks and replace them with Israelis as part of a broader plan to cut the number of foreigners working in the Jewish state.
    The Israeli Ethnic Restaurant Organisation said the country's 300 Asian restaurants refused to serve spring, or egg, rolls -- one of their most popular dishes -- on Tuesday, and planned a follow-up strike in two weeks for sushi and noodles.

    "The government's decision of cutting all the foreign worker's visas is a critical blow to all the Asian restaurants in Israel today. On the one hand the government says 'bring Israelis', and on the other hand they are not helping us making Israelis ready for such jobs," said Gil Hazan, manager of Giraffe Noodle Bar in Tel Aviv, referring to the government's refusal to assist in training designated Israeli cooks for the job.
    Unlike the United States or Europe, Israel attracts virtually no immigrants from Asia since anyone seeking citizenship here must prove they have Jewish family.
    Seeking to plug a gap in the labour market during the first Palestinian uprising, Israel allowed foreigners to work in the Jewish state. But now it is trying to limit those numbers to create more jobs for Israelis.
    This year the government is granting 500 permits to Asian chefs compared to 900 last year. Next year no permits will be issued, although restaurants willing to pay twice the average national salary will be allowed to employ chefs as "experts".
    The government argues Israelis can easily be trained to make Chinese, Japanese or Thai cuisine, especially for less sophisticated jobs, where they are simply "stirring the wok".
    Shoshana Strauss, a lawyer working on foreign worker issues for the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor, told Reuters that everyone can make Chinese food, and it's not impossible to learn.
    But Asian cooks and culinary workers in Giraffe's do not believe Israeli chefs could take their place. "Maybe you can only know how to do it, but you don't really understand in Chinese food, because it's a Chinese restaurant, all the Chinese cook is a professor," said Liu 'Bibi', a cook from China.
    Customers were worried as well. "It's gonna kill most of the Asian restaurants, I won't have the money to actually go and spend the evening there," said Rafi Wiler, a student from Tel Aviv.
    Asian restaurants first started dishing up chicken chow mein and Thai green curry to Israelis about 30 years ago and have evolved into a 1-billion-shekels-a-year ($275 million) industry.
    Sushi has proved a massive hit with young hipsters and business people in the secular coastal metropolis of Tel Aviv and the city's 100th sushi restaurant opened last month.

    "All over the world you can see that the Asian people are cooking Asian food. Here they think that they found a better way, they think Israeli, without any training whatsoever, without any knowledge, about the history, the customs, the technology, can do that," complained Chef Avi Konforti, owner of Zepra restaurant in Tel Aviv. Konforti sells around 100 egg rolls on an average day, and seized to do so in solidarity of the strike.
    The Israeli Ethnic Restaurant Organisation had asked Israel's Supreme Court to force the government to rethink the decision, arguing it could force many out of business or make them inflate prices to cover the salaries needed to secure "expert" visas for chefs.

    "Most of the restaurants are gonna close. If you gonna have this food, most probably it's gonna be much more expensive," concluded Konforti.
    Ends.
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