Histadrut Threatens General Strike Over Minimum Wage

YERUSHALAYIM (Hamodia Staff) —

After a brief interlude of calm in labor relations, Histadrut chairman Avi Nissenkorn has declared his intention to initiate a general labor dispute on Tuesday, Globes reported.

Among the issues on the table: the low minimum wage, the increasing use of contract workers, and “the state’s contempt in failing to apply an extension order concerning the employment of people with disabilities in the public service.”

If Nissenkorn goes ahead with the plan on Tuesday, public sector employees will be legally entitled to strike 14 days afterwards, on December 2.

In addition, the head of the Israel Teachers Union has said it intends to declare its own labor dispute on Thursday, because of the contract workers issue; and unrest continues at the National Insurance Institute, the Israel Postal Company, and several government companies.

“All attempts at dialogue with the government have failed,” Nissenkorn said, “The government’s policies have proved to us that apart from shady deals at the expense of the weakest workers, no genuine solution has been offered. I will not lend a hand to shady deals that widen gaps and force thousands of families to live on humiliatingly low wages that do not permit them to live decently. I suggest that the government ministers should try living on NIS 4,300 for just one month. The entire country will stand behind us in demanding a rise in the shameful and humiliating minimum wage paid to hundreds of thousands of workers in the economy.”

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