SodaStream Hires 300 Workers at Israel Plant After Quitting West Bank
JERUSALEM — Southern Israel-based SodaStream has hired 300 new employees for its production plant in the Negev Desert.
The company now has 1,400 employees in the Idan Hanegev industrial park near Lehavim, one-third of them Bedouin Arabs from the surrounding area, the Israeli business daily Globes reported.
The company, one of the largest employers in the Negev, will hire 70 more people in the coming weeks, according to the report published Wednesday.
The company is also buying 20 new manufacturing machines to keep up with the demand for home carbonated drinks products in Israel and in the West. Figures published SodaStream show that demand for its products has risen sharply since May 2015, mainly in the Israeli market, but also in other markets, according to Globes.
In October 2014, SodaStream announced it would close its West Bank factory in Maale Adumim and move to southern Israel in the face of international pressure from the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, or BDS, which seeks to hurt Israel’s economy over its policies toward the Palestinians. The movement claimed that SodaStream discriminated against Palestinian workers and paid some less than Israeli workers.
Some 500 Palestinian employees lost their jobs at that time. Israel gave the remaining 74 employees permission to enter the country and continue to work for SodaStream until the end of February.
“The last day they worked here was a heartbreaking spectacle,” SodaStream Israel general manager Tamir Melamud told Globes in the article published Wednesday. “Jews, Christians, and Muslims stopped working when those workers left the factory. We just all stood and wept. Some of them had worked for us for 10 years. They were well-liked and dedicated, and because of politics and permits, they’re no longer here.”
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
