General strike shows
Histadrut only brought a temporary social peace A number of serious employeremployee disputes remain unresolved, unemployment is growing, and workers are being dismissed from enterprises due to privatisation and the relocation of underlying left weakness In December 700,000 Israeli workers participated in a four-day general strike called by the Histadrut [trade union federation]. Sergio Yani reports from Jerusalem. The strike included the hospitals (which operated on a reduced schedule), government offices, the Electric Company (which ceased making repairs), the banks, the telephone monopoly Bezek, the aircraft industry, the military industries, the gasoline stations, the post office, administrative workers in the General Sick Fund, the universities - and many others. The strike included the sea and airports, which made it almost impossible for people or goods to enter or exit Israel during the strike. On the last day, there were work stoppages in the public transportation system within the country.
When the strike ended, the leaders of the Histadrut were able to annonce with satisfaction that a large part of their demands had been met: Finance Minister Yaakov Ne'eman agreed to abide by the pension agreements signed by ithe Histadrut and the previous government, which was intended to stabilise the situation of the pension funds. Before the strike, he had refused to recognise the validity of these agreements.
An intense dispute has emerged concerning the basis on which the amount of a worker's pension is to be calculated. In Israel it is quite common for workers to receive indirect wage supplements, in the form of various benefits (such as for clothing and travel). Thus, it is often the case that an employees direct salary will be quite low, whereas the other elements that compose his earnings amount to more.
The Histadrut is seeking to include some new elements in total salary for the purpose of calculating workers pensions, that in the past were not included in the agreement signed by the Histadrut and the Finance Ministry. The meeting of this demand was one of the strike's major achievements. As well as a series of other pension-related matters, the Finance Ministry agreed to negotiate with the Histadrut on renewing the wage agreements in the public sector and the inclusion of the Histadrut in discussions on the future of child benefits. Struggle not over
However, it must be emphasised only a memorandum of agreement [and not a comprehensive agreement] was signed. Now the sides will commence negotiations on the details. But the Finance Ministry obtained the agreement of the Histadrut not to declare a full or partial strike with regard to issues which were included in the memorandum of agreement. Thus, it is reasonable to assume that in the future the Finance Ministry will try to introduce factories (especially, although not exclusively, in the textile industry) to Egypt and Jordan. Privatising Israel
The threat to the workers' pension rights is only a part of the plan to privatise the Israeli economy, which was crystallised by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (the IMF), as part of these institutions' global policies of neo-liberalism.
The attack on the pension funds, like the cut-backs in all social services, to the point of their total destruction, as happened in Britain under Margaret Thatcher' are among the means used by the World Bank and the IMF to liberate capital from the shackles of the state and from societal pressures on the state to concern itself with the welfare of its citizens, and implement the full rule of the free market in every realm.
According to the French economist, Maxime Durand: "Social security pensions were a way of separating the accumulation of funds for old age from individual savings and organising a kind of social solidarity between those who would could work and those who could not. It was society as a whole (and not an insurance company) that guaranteed that those who paid their social security deduction today would in the future [receive a] retirement pension, following certain rules which were not individual...
The Israeli Finance Minister, who is committed to the neo-liberal programme of destroying the pension funds, was confronted with unexpectedly strong resistance by the Histadrut, similar to the response of trade unions throughout the
INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH AND EDUCATION:
The Gulf War and the New World Order
André Gunder Frank and Salah Jaber [72 pages A4]
12 International Viewpoint #298 world to the global onslaught. However, in comparison to other places, the workers struggle waged by the Histadrut was, to a certain extent, easier: the government made major concessions after five days of general strike.
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* Israel , 4. THUNn
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117
The Histadrut's new policy
The latest confrontation between the Histadrut and the Finance Ministry was the first labour conflict in Israel which spun out of the control of both the Histadrut bureaucracy and the Finance Ministry. Up till now, confrontations always took place in a closed framework agreed-upon in advance by the Histadrut and the ruling system.
This balance between the ruling institutions and the Histadrut ceased to be complete in 1977, when an electoral upheaval brought the Likud to power for the first time since 1948. Up till then, the Labour Party had led both the government and the Histadrut (even before the establishment of the state, ever since the establishment of the Histadrut in 1920, Mapa'i - the predecessor of the Labour Party - had been the dominant force in both the general trade union and the institutions of the state-in-the- making).
However, with the rise of the Likud to power, this balance began to disintegrate, since the Likud viewed both the Labour Party and the Histadrut as enemies which had to be destroyed in order to solidify the hold on power handed it acquired as a result of the elections, as well as because of its ideological hostility to the welfare state. Nevertheless, throughout the entire period of Likud government, the Histadrut proved itself to be a model of "national responsibility, and continued its pacifying role with regard to everything connected privatised (no one would buy it). Thus, if the Histadrut, or it least its leaders, wanted to stay alive, they had to take its trade union function more seriously...
The recent general strike showed that the days when the Histadrut served as a mediator between the state and the workers, with a tendency to favour the interests of the state, are over. Today it is acts as a party to the dispute which forces the government to take account of the positions of the workers it represents.
On the other hand, the Histadrut is still a bureaucratic organisation whose first concern is its own institutional interests, and which lacks an alternative socialeconomic programme to the government's neo-liberalism. Global Centre-Left Strategy....
In practice, one can say that it is demanding slower and more "humane" implementation of the government's plan, but not its cancellation. From conservatism to fascism?
In the context of the extortionist and partisan opportunism which characterises political culture in Israel, Yaakov Ne'eman is thought of as a protessional figure, a first-class jurist whose ethical record is spotless. It is true that he is not a member of any political party, but he is a hard-line right-winger in more than just the sphere of economics: he was one of the founders of Gush Emunim (the settlement movement of the national-religious rightwing), and on the question of settlements
(Local Nothing Left Strategy...)
to workers' interests.
More - and less - than a trade uniqn