4 foreign workers barricade selves atop crane

Four foreign workers have been barricading themselves on a crane in a construction site in Ra’anana since the morning and are threatening to jump to their deaths unless the subcontractor who hired them pays them their salary in cash immediately.

Initially, Haaretz reports, three Chinese workers, one African and another of unknown origin were barricaded on the crane, but several hours ago one of them went down and four others remained.

The five men work at a site in the Neve Zemer neighborhood in Ra’anana. When the incident started, police cars, firefighters, an interpreter and representatives of the contractor arrived at the scene and tried negotiating with the workers, urging them to descend. The talks failed when the subcontractor said he would pay the workers only on March 20. The subcontractor and firefighters have left the premises and only one police car remains at the scene.

All the while, prospective homeowners continued to arrive at the sales office down below.

Today’s incident echoes a previous incident at the same site, when three Chinese workers barricaded themselves at the top of a crane for many hours.