Half a million public and private sector workers in Israel started an open ended general strike today, Wednesday February 8, in defence of the rights of contract workers. The strike was called by labour federation Histadrut, after last minute talks with the government failed to reach any agreement.
The strike affects all sectors of the economy, including ministries, local municipalities, health care, education, ports, airports, postal services, banks, the stock exchange, coal, water and electricity, museums, etc, showing the enormous power of organised labour (a full list of sectors involved has been published by the Jerusalem Post).
In the last two decades, Israel has witness an employment rights counter-revolution with a massive shift from union jobs with full benefits towards subcontracted jobs with lower wages and no rights. The introduction of the Employment of Employees by Manpower Contractors Law in 1996 opened the floodgates for the subcontracting and outsourcing of workers in all sectors of the economy, but particularly affecting public sector workers.
According to a report by the Workers' Advice Centre:
"At first it affected Arab workers, migrant laborers, workers of Ethiopian or Russian origin, and the unemployed who were thrown to the Wisconsin program. But it then spread. Industry, hospitals, nursing, schools, social work, the Israel Broadcasting Authority, the Israel Antiquities Authority, government ministries, the Israel Postal Company, universities – all were affected. Today, thousands are employed in these places either as “self-employed,” or via service providers, or as freelancers, or via third sector organizations which act as manpower agencies in all but name."
There are now 400,000 contract workers in Israel, according to Histadrut. Contract workers earn on average between 30% less that permanent workers and have none of their social benefits and rights, and can be made redundant at any time. A union-sponsored amendment to the Manpower Contractors Law, introduced in 2008, said that contract employees working in the same position for over 9 months have to be taken on by the contracting party. In reality, this led to a situation where contract workers are sacked after nine months and replaced by others.
Contract workers are disproportionately drawn from amongst the most vulnerable sections of the working class, being mainly immigrants and women. An official report of the Knesset research centre published in 2011 found that 50% of all contract workers are post-1990 immigrants (mainly from the former Soviet Union), when this group represents only 12% of the total population. The same report showed how 35% of Ethiopian immigrants work as contract labourers.
Another study by the Taub Center for Social Policy Studies revealed how subcontracting is not limited to low skill jobs but affects all sectors of the public services. 86% of services provided by the Social Affairs Ministry are subcontracted to private companies, including 70% of social workers, and of these, 90% are women.
It is not just a question of the conditions and rights of workers, but also of the impact of profit making motivations on the delivery of these services. This is an example given in an article in Haarezt:
"a social worker at an institution for the mentally impaired said the director had asked her not to send a certain patient to rehabilitation even though she thought he could be rehabilitated, because "at the moment there's no other [patient] in line to replace him, and without patients, we won't get funding from the Social Affairs Ministry.""
The unions had already raised the issue of contract workers in November, but at that time the National Labour Court issued an injunction against strike action, forcing Histadrut to negotiations with the employers and the government. This time, the Federation of Israeli Chambers of Commerce also asked for an injunction against the strike, but failed to get it.
On the eve of the strike, the Histadrut leaders reached an agreement with the main private employers' federation, the Coordinating Bureau of Economic Organizations, which says that contract workers who have been working full time for 1 or 2 years should be taken on as permanent workers by the contracting organisation and that contract workers who continue to work for an employment agency "would have their salaries and benefits brought in line with those of regular employees." The details of this agreement, however, are not unclear, as we have already seen how bosses deal with the already existing 9 month limit rule.
It is not even very clear how far is the leadership of Histadrut prepared to go in their campaign. Its chairman Ofer Eini talked of two main measures that should be adopted:
"Outsourced workers, especially full-time cleaning workers, would be taken on as regular employees by the firms in which they work. The status of other outsourced workers would not change in relation to their employer but they would receive salaries equal to people employed directly by the company."
This, in itself, would be an important step forward in the conditions of outsourced workers, but would still not completely solve their situation. While equal wages are mentioned, there is no mention of associated benefits (health care, pensions, etc). Significantly, it seems that one of the points which blocked a possible agreement between the unions and the government was the right of strike for contract workers. On this question Eini said:
"We almost signed an agreement, but the Finance Ministry wanted a clause revoking these workers' right to strike. Everything stood on this point. There's no chance that we'll forego this right. " (Jerusalem Post)
The government had made an offer which included a 20% wage rise for contract workers in the public sector and additional annual leave, but refused to make any concessions on the actual hiring of these workers in-house. Histadrut leader Eini replied: "the only weapon workers have is the weapon of a strike."
The calling of this general strike is clearly linked to the massive social movement which shook Israel last year with hundreds of thousands marching for social justice. That movement was partially inspired by the Arab revolution, but also rooted in the worsening social conditions in Israel. It also put the leaders of Histadrut under enormous pressure to be seen as doing something in defence of workers. Ofer Eini admitted it in the following statement:
"Something happened in the summer of 2011. The people won't accept no social justice, and social justice cannot exist in a place where outside contractors are being exploited."
Left wing trade union activists have actually called for a protest outside the Histradut offices in Tel Aviv, in support of the strike but also against the current leadership of the union and demanding a "democratic working class organisation." Whatever the immediate motivations of the trade union leaders in calling this action, the strike movement of hundreds of thousands of workers is going to have an impact in their consciousness, as they become aware of their own collective power. Furthermore, it will pitch workers against bosses, helping break the national chauvinism and religious divisions which the ruling class uses to mantain its domination and which play such a crucial role in Israeli capitalism.