Adapted from a paper discussed at the annual seminar of the Organization for Democratic Action, October 2007 DURING the past thirty years, but especially in the last decade, Israel has undergone major economic change. Ownership of the economy has shifted…
Article Author: Adiv, Assaf
The Pension Scam
IN JULY 2007 the Histadrut (Israel’s General Federation of Labor) reached a pension agreement with the Coordinating Office of Economic Organizations.1 “A historic accord!” said the signers. For the first time in Israel, the unorganized working poor would have a pension…
Palestinian Quarry Workers Organize
THE SAL’IT QUARRY lies in the desert north of the West Bank settlement of Maaleh Adumim, a bedroom suburb of Jerusalem. Its workers have decided to break through the Fear Barrier and wage a struggle for their rights. There are…
The Wall and the Sweatshops
Palestinian Workers in Abu Dis near Jerusalem SINCE MAY 2006, the 75,000 people of Abu Dis and other Arab villages near Jerusalem have been cut off from the city by the separation wall. Until then there were still openings here…
Reforms versus Organized Labor
AFTER CUTTING INTO the living flesh of the jobless, the physically challenged, children and the elderly, and after trampling organized labor, the Israeli government in 2007 wakes up to discover that there is poverty in the land. One fourth of…
Netanyahu Redux
AMID THE SHOCK of the Lebanon War in August, it was clear to Israelis that changes would be needed in the budget for 2007. Pictures poured in showing the plight of the poor, left to their own devices beneath Hezbollah’s…
The Breaking of Organized Labor in Israel
ISRAEL OF THE 21st century likes its workers docile, accessible, mobile, and cheap. This wasn’t always the case. The ruling establishment, built by Mapai and the Histadrut, for decades maintained a high level of income equality, accompanied by a ramified…
Arab Parties: Nervous but not united
IN the coming Israeli election, scheduled for March 28, 2006, the parties will have to garner 2% of the ballots in order to enter the Knesset. That will amount to about 80,000 votes, enough for three mandates. (A party enters…
Amir Peretz: Capitalism in Pink
THE surprise victory of Amir Peretz in the Labor Party primaries on November 9, 2005 raised a political tempest. Labor’s death had been certified with the collapse of the Oslo Accords, but the sudden ascent of the Histadrut* chief transformed…
Wisconsin in Israel: Punishing the Poor
IN early August 2005, steps were taken to implement the Wisconsin Plan in Israel – known here as Me-ha-Lev: “From the Heart.” Applied in the American state of Wisconsin in the mid 1990’s, it signals a new stage in the…