On Tuesday, December 16, Chairman of the Histadrut (the General Federation of Labor), Avi Nissenkorn, wrote to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanding that the government cease delaying implementation of the agreement reached a couple of weeks ago which raised the minimum wage in Israel to 27 shekels an hour. Nissenkorn’s message to the neo-liberal Netanyahu, who is currently also serving as the Minister of Finance, included a letter written by retired judge Dr. Eliyahu Winograd. In his letter, the latter stated that there is no reason why the agreement reached in negotiations between the Histadrut and the Employers’ Federation to raise the minimum wage throughout the workplace could not be put into action immediately, without further delay.

Demonstrators in Tel-Aviv, demanding a 30 Shekel per hour minimum wage December 3, 2014. (Photo: Minimum 30)

The agreement reached between Nissenkorn of the Histadrut and Zvi Oren, Chairman of the Employers’ Federation of Israeli Economic Organizations, was signed on December 3, just days before a strike threatened by the Histradrut was due to begin. In addition to raising the minimum wage to 27 shekels an hour, under the new agreement, in the future the minimum wage in Israel will calculated as 52% of the average wage in the workplace, and not 47.5% as was the case until now.