Dissent Labor MK Eitan Cabel launched a campaign to head the Histadrut labor federation on Monday, accusing incumbent Labor chairman Ofer Eini of favoring big business and the wealthy over the workers. “Eini has been revealed as no less than a collaborator who turned his back on the workers and betrayed his mission,” Cabel said at a press conference in Tel Aviv. “He abandoned those who chose him, favoring the wealthy, the employers and the treasury.”
presented “The Social Home,” a new fraction in the Histadrut Labor Federation elections, saying that if Eini continues as chairman, there will no longer be an organized labor union in Israel. “The Social Home”, has the backing of Hadash (Democratic Front for Peace and Equality – Communist Party of Israel). Kadima, Meretz and several dissent Labor members. Labor, Cabel’s party, has endorsed Eini, and threatened last month to punish Cabel should pursue the Histadrut leadership.
“Eini has a reign of terror and threats, and we will break it. Every country has its own Tahrir Square,” the MK said. According to the dissent Labor MK, Eini turned the Histadrut into a Byzantine court by appointing his wife and brother to key jobs and became “part of the system” by cooperating with a destructive, capitalist and neo-liberal government. “The Histadrut is meant to be a protective wall around workers, not a place where they are seen as a production line without a soul,” Cabel said. “The Histadrut has become old and worn out.”
“The working person in the Israel of 2012 is forced to confront forces greater than himself that have stopped seeing him as a human being, but only as an assembly line with no soul or spirit,” said Cabel, a former secretary general of the Labor Party. “I don’t feel comfortable when I learn from the media that [Eini] has appointed his life partner to be chairman of the Histadrut education network and his brother to be chairman of a faction that gets tens of thousands of shekels, and I certainly don’t feel comfortable with the fact that he lives in a luxury apartment in Tel Aviv while saying that he lives in Be’er Sheva,” Cabel said. “When I assume the position I’ll sell the fancy apartment. I’ll continue to live in Rosh Ha’ayin.”
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