Labor chairwoman MK Shelly Yacimovich said today that she supports the strike being called for tomorrow by the Histadrut (General Federation of Labor in Israel). Yacimovich said, "The struggle for contract workers' rights is the most important struggle facing Israeli society.
"Minister of Finance Yuval Steinitz claims that employing contract workers directly will set us back 30 years, but the way the hundreds of thousands of contract workers are currently being employed sets us back 150 years to the days of dark slavery when peoples' dignity was trampled upon."
Yacimovich added, "The Ministry of Finance is using false and cleaned up language. It is refusing to acknowledge the existence of a large portion of Israel's citizens. All the government needs to do is to employee these people directly, and to pay them the brokerage fee that the middlemen are currently taking for themselves. This phenomenon is so deeply entrenched that it will take time to eradicate it. Every effort made to minimize this phenomenon is so worthwhile and important that every person who yearns for social justice should join the struggle."
If a last-minute solution is not found, a general strike will begin tomorrow at 6:00 am, and will include the airports, sea ports, public transportation, banks, the stock exchange, and local authorities.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on November 6, 2011
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