Avi Nissenkorn
Avi NissenkornYonatan Sindel/Flash 90

The Histadrut has had enough of Israelis being underpaid – and for once and for all is demanding that all workers in the country be paid a living wage. The union has called a meeting for Wednesday to discuss a possible work action – including a nationwide strike. At issue is a demand by the union for an increase in wages for workers covered by collective bargaining agreements. A spokesperson for the union said that negotiations had not achieved any breakthroughs, and that the union had no choice but to “take other actions.”

The union blamed officials of the Finance Ministry for failing to negotiate in good faith, and for “raising irrelevant issues that prevent us from progressing in the talks.” The government, for its part, said that it was doing the best that it could and that it had even gone beyond its original offers in order to bring about a deal, but that the union apparently had made its decision before the talks even began.

Last month, when a previous round of talks failed, the union declared a nationwide work dispute. Under Israeli law, a work dispute must be declared at least two weeks before a union can strike, in order to allow for last-ditch negotiations. In this case, the dispute was declared more than two weeks ago – which means that union is within its rights to strike immediately if it so decides.

If it does do so, Israel is likely to be paralyzed, as teachers, airport workers, social workers, civilian workers in the IDF, nurses, and local authority workers would walk off the job.

According to Histadrut head Avi Nissenkorn, “a quarter of Israelis earn the minimum wage, and half of workers earn less than the amount that would require them to even pay taxes – an abysmally low amount. Wages are far too low in Israel. Workers have had enough of empty slogans -they want action. We are required to increase wages for workers, and take action to make sure that happens.”