THAN General strike underlying left 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 announce 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 the 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
LE MILRUD CLLL UCINL LUALL. 1773 cur Ml ..L ALOL *G,LIE UOLUL VEA VIE INTUIÉ I U OL WIU IC GO таша тіл 12.10 Чила 7013 "01' 1 AD SLe: shows i weakness 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
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12฿ changes that will detract from the achievements of this strike.
For example, on December 21, the Finance Ministry announced that it is not prepared to include all the new salary components in the calculation of pension rights, but only some of them. Similarly, the matter of the amount of compensation due to a worker who transfers from one pension fund to another is likely to be a matter of dispute.
Nevertheless, owing to the strength amassed by the Histadrut as a result of the strike, it will not be easy for the Finance Ministry to reintroduce all its original pension reforms. In any event, one thing is clear: the plan to destroy the pension funds has been stopped in its tracks.
Most important of all, the agreement between the Finance Ministry and the 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 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 racictones bu the Hiatadmit similar to the resistance by the Histadrut, similar to the response of trade unions throughout the 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.
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 to workers' interests. More - and less - than a trade union
For most of its history, the Histadrut was "more" than a trade union, it was also the second largest employer in the country, Thus, it was never a trade union in the West European sense. The Trade Union Department was but one of many of the Histadrut's wings and sections, including companies - such as Solel Boneh construction company, the HaPoel network of sports teams, Kupat Holim (the Sick Fund), the Kibbutz movement, Bank HaPoalim, Tnuva (marketing of agricultural produce), and others.
The Trade Union Department was by no means in a preferred or privileged role compared to the Histadrut's capitalist and quasi-capitalist enterprises. The role of the Histadrut was to balance between capital and labour in order to promote Zionist aims (before 1948) or the interests of the Zionist state, after its establishment. It fulfilled this role as one among other Zionist institutions.
The liberalisation of the economy, and the crises which rocked the economy in the last thirty years, deprived the Histadrut of its property assets one by one, starting in the 1980's and continuing on through the 1990's.
However, in a paradoxical fashion, these liberalising steps empowered the Trade Union Department of the Histadrut, for a very simple reason: as opposed to Kupat Holim, the industrial enterprises and the banks, the TUD could not be 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...
No more war
One country in the world has produced more weapons of mass destruction than any other. This same country is the only one which has ever used weapons of mass destruction against another people - at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
It is the most transparent hypocrisy for the government of the United States to claim that it has some moral obligation to act as world policeman - as it did during the Gulf war and is again today -under the cover of keeping Saddam Hussein from developing weapons of mass destruction.
Whatever such weapons - or capability to develop them - the criminal Iraqi regime may have, are only the result of the aid Baghdad received from the U.S. and European powers when Saddam was seen as an ally in the region against the Iranian revolution and the rise of Islamic Fundamentalism.
Today the U.S., backed by others, is threatening to launch military strikes against Iraq again. Washington claims that its target is Hussein's failure to comply with U.N. resolutions. But the Clinton administration knows full well that it cannot force compliance through bombs and embargoes.
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 professional 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...) BAGHDAD against Iraq!
Working people in Iraq and worldwide have no interest in defending Saddam Hussein, who has committed the worst kind of butchery against his own country's population and denies the right of self-determination for the Kurds.
But no one should have any illusions that Washington can be the liberator of Iraq. And this is the furthest thing from the minds of the Clinton administration. Indeed, as long as the embargo and threat of military retaliation remain it will be that much more difficult for any significant internal Iraqi opposition to develop.
The main victim of the Gulf war and of the present imperialist campaign is the civilian population of Iraq. Already half a million children have died as a direct result of the blockade or want of basic food and medicine. How many more victims must there be before the world says "enough?"
We say: No more war against the people of Iraq! End the embargo now!
Fourth International International Executive Committee 21 February 1998 3
* Israel he is thought of as more extreme than most of the leaders the National-Religious Party who spearheaded the settlement drive in the territories which were occupied by Israel in 1967.
"Ne'eman is the most determined enemy of the working-class ever to amass power in Israel, a man who seeks to eradicate finally all the achievements of the working-class since the Histadrut was founded in 1920 ... He is not afraid to incite against the workers as part of a system of divide-and-rule and to bend public opinion to his purposes." (Haim Baram, writing in Kol Ha'ir, 17-5-97).
Ne'eman's political positions are expressed in his proposed 1198 State Budget and his proposed Arrangements in the Economy Law (which is designed to facilitate various economic operations, such as the privatisation of the health care system), both of which will be voted upon by the Knesset in late December. The proposed laws would require retired people on pensions to pay National Insurance [social security] fees, although they have always been exempt from this till now; it would cut benefit payments for the first and second children, as well as privatisation of the health care system.
The health care system is a major target of government attack today. Ne'eman's bill proposes major structural changes in the National/State Health Insurance Law, which would allow the sick funds to collect additional fees from their members, the turning of the government hospitals into quasi-private corporations, and the privatisation of the geriatric hospitals. These changes would mean the destruction of the basket of health services and the abandonment of the poorest 60% of the population to severe illness and poor medical treatment. Two health care systems are being created - one for the rich and one for the poor. Poor, elderly persons suffering from severe illness but who can't afford the fees of the geriatric hospitals - will be thrown out into the streets without shelter.
By contrast, the proposed 1998 State Budget does not discriminate between rich and poor. The privatisation of state lands (93% of all land within the State of Israel), which began under the Labour government - will continue, including the special benefits being given to the kibbutzim and moshavim, who are receiving a gift worth 907 New Israel Shekels (NIS) from the state treasury as a
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