Posted on 03/24/2003 9:57:32 PM PST by monkeyshine
Histadrut Planning To Strike
The Histadrut Labor Union, under the leadership of MK Amir Peretz, is threatening an economy-wide strike in the coming days, in protest against the new economic program to be adopted by the government. Peretz and Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu met today but did not come to a meeting of the minds, and the strike threat is still on. "We refuse to allow the entire burden of the current economic crisis to fall upon the working class," Peretz said.
The new economic program was attacked from another angle as well. Jewish Agency Chairman Sallai Meridor, addressing a joint session of the Knesset's Immigrant Absorption and Education committees, this morning, said that the economic measures proposed by the Treasury, "for instance, closing the Olim [Immigrants] Student Administration, directly contradict the most basic interests of the State of Israel. This is a severe breach of trust towards young immigrants and their parents who entrusted them to the State of Israel... The result will be a reversal of the trend in Aliyah. Many elderly will come and few young Olim. This is the responsibility of the entire government; I cannot imagine that such a proposal will be accepted." In an unusual emergency session of the Jewish Agency Executive last night, with the participation of Absorption Minister Tzippy Livni and (via tele-conferencing) Jewish leaders from abroad, a resolution was adopted calling on the Cabinet to refrain from authorizing economic measures that will harm immigrants and Aliyah.
Some changes have been made in the economic program. Public Security personnel - mainly police - will lose some health benefits, but on the other hand their salaries will continue to be linked to those in the IDF. College tuition will remain the same, as a compromise between students who'd hoped to have it lowered and the Finance Ministry, which had planned to raise it. In addition, Education Minister Limor Livnat announced today that the budget cuts will cause the firing of 6,000 teachers next year - as opposed to the 16,000 it had originally been feared would lose their jobs. Livnat said that efforts would be made not to harm the Ministry's educational efforts, but rather its bureaucracy.
Ofir Eini, Chairman of the Public Sector Workers Union, told Arutz-7 today, "The Finance Minister says that there's no money in the coffers. This means that he should be trying to get money. We offered our participation in this effort: the postponement of the payment of the cost of living increase of 2.1%, which could save six billion shekels - much more than what he wanted from the public-sector workers. Unfortunately, we see that Netanyahu wants much more than money; he wants to touch sacred cows. He wants to cancel wage agreements via legislation, change firing procedures, and do away with other such arrangements that have been around for many years - without dialogue. If this is his direction, we will not make it easy for him."
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