A nationwide strike looms overhead as the Histadrut National Labor Federation is planning to announce a ‘work dispute’ this week. A work dispute starts the 14-day countdown timer, after which the national labor federation may declare a strike.

Histadrut Chairman Avi Nissankoren announced on motzei Shabbos Parshas Chayei Sarah that on Tuesday, 25 Marcheshvan he plans to announce a ‘work dispute’. The intention of the 14-day period is to permit the sides to enter into negotiations towards reaching an agreement by the end of the hiatus period and thereby averting a strike. In reality however, serious negotiations rarely precede an actual strike. The main reasons given for the declaration are; the unacceptably low minimum wage, the alarming increase in using contracted workers instead of hiring employees, the failure to adequately provide employment opportunities for the disabled.

Joining in on Tuesday will be Yossi Wasserman, who heads the nation’s teachers union. He explains the outsourcing of teachers to manpower agencies in unacceptable, depriving his teachers of basic worker rights since the manpower agencies do not contain a social package commensurate with the position.

Nissankoren explains he has exhausted all efforts in trying to speak with the relevant government officials who are simply uninterested in what he has to say. Therefore, the labor federation finds itself with its back up against the wall, left without other alternatives. The labor leader explains that under the current administration the rich are becoming wealthier and the gap between the working class and wealthy continues to widen at the expense of the workers and the growing number of the nation’s poor. He decries the low minimum wage and calls on cabinet ministers to attempt to feed a family on 4,300 shekels monthly, which is what too many Israelis are earning. The labor union decries the increasing number of ‘working poor’ as salaries erode while prices continue to increase.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)