Shlomo Stern, who heads the Department of Religious and Education Employees in the national Histadrut Labor Union, sent a letter to all the religious councils and their employees, informing them of the strike. He called upon them not to show up for work beginning tomorrow and until further notice. The only services to be provided at present will be those of mikvaot (ritual baths), while funerals will be held only at night.
"Hundreds of workers have not been receiving their salaries," Stern told Arutz-7 on Sunday, the day on which the workers held a 24-hour warning strike. "Some have not been paid for one month, others for six months. The religious council workers in Bat Yam, for instance, have not seen a check for six months."
The religious councils were placed under the auspices of the Prime Minister's Office some 20 months ago, when the Ministry of Religious Affairs was dismantled. One Histadrut source decried the "apathy" of the Prime Minister's Office regarding the workers' plight.
The Histadrut decision to call the strike comes following the failure of the Sunday strike and the resultant problems of burials to solve the problem.
Stern's letter states, "In light of the lack of payment of salaries to religious council workers, such that they are liable to enter the new year and the holidays without salaries, and in continuation of the warning strike of Sunday, we hereby announce a general strike of the religious councils across the country, unrestricted in time, starting Wednesday morning, 8 AM. All employees and rabbis, excluding the women who work in the women's mikvaot, are required not to come to work starting from this time, until further announcement. Please hold funerals only during the night hours."
Stern told Arutz-7 that Atty. Meir Spiegler heads the religious services department in the Prime Minister's office, "but he has not been in contact with us, despite our attempts to contact him."
Stern explained that the problem of salaries for religious council employees is an ongoing one that has never been solved. "Here and there salaries were paid," he said, "but the issue in its entirety was never solved. It's very complex, involving various things, such as cuts in the national budget for religious councils, the terrible financial situation of the localities, which are supposed to pay 60% of our budgets, and in some cases it's just a conflict of one type or another - but the bottom line is that the salaries aren't being paid."