After two days of general strike and a night of extending deadlines and intensive negotiations, the two sides had been on the verge of signing an agreement. According to preliminary reports, the Histadrut’s agreement includes two parts: a deal reached with private employers Tuesday and a deal with the government.
MK Dov Khenin (Hadash), Associate Chairman of the Direct Employment Knesset Lobby, expressed his disappointment with the tentative agreement between the Labor Federation and the government.
Even after the great general strike, we are still very far from the transfer of all workers to direct employment. There is no reason why contractor workers with many years’ tenure cannot advance and receive salary promotions accordingly.”
Social protest leaders demonstrated with contract workers at Ben-Gurion International Airport (Photo: Social Movement)
The strike by Israel’s Histadrut largest labor federation shut banks, ports, the stock exchange and most government offices today. As talks between the government and Histadrut to end the work stoppage stretched into the evening. Histadrut went on strike for the same reason last November, but on that occasion the labour court limited the action to just four hours and ordered the two sides to work out a deal.
The work stoppage is in protest over conditions for contract employees. Histadrut estimates that 250,000 Israelis employed through contractors receive on average about 30 percent less pay than comparable workers directly employed. The labor federation wants the government to take stronger steps to have them hired directly so they receive higher wages and benefits. Most Israel Radio channels were also on strike on Wednesday. “Stopping the broadcasts is part of the solidarity among workers, and we also support an agreement to find a solution to the subcontracted workers predicament,” said a senior member of the Broadcasting Authority’s engineering union.
Ben-Gurion International Airport was shut Wednesday for the first six hours of the strike, which involves 500,000 workers. The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and the Bank of Israel were closed. In Jerusalem, Hebrew University students, social activists and Hadash and Communist Party of Israel members protested against the contract workers’ employment terms in front of the National Labor Court in Jerusalem. The activists held a symbolic burial ceremony for the “dignity of the working man.”
The protesters called on the Treasury to meet the Histadrut labor federation’s demand to directly hire the public sector’s contracted employees. Earlier, hundred of working class activists, among them Hadash and communists, rallied in front of the Histadrut’s headquarters in Tel Aviv, demanding the union to step up the battle against contracted employment. MK Khenin was among the protesters who carried red flags. Israel’s social protest leaders, among them Hadash militants, join un the morning the general strike at Ben Gurion International Airport
The neo-liberal Ministry of Finance has been arguing that the decision to allow the Histadrut to strike to demand a reduction in the phenomenon of contract workers means “awarding the Histadrut a mandate to run the economy.”
Related:
Israel general strike and demonstrations in Tel Aviv Jerusalem and Haifa
