The Ministerial Economic Committee decided today to keep all 650 employes of the financially ailing Haifa Shipyards on the payroll pending the report of a special committee of experts on plans to re-organize the government-owned shipbuilding and repair facility on Haifa Bay and make it economically viable.
The workers were ordered on a payless furlough of indefinite duration last week by the government-appointed receiver, Amiram Blum. The order was upheld by a Jerusalem district court, and the workers barricaded themselves behind the shipyard gates. Histadrut announced yesterday that it would call a brief general strike in the Haifa area next week if the furloughed employes were not reinstated, to be followed by a call for a nationwide general strike if necessary.
Blum said yesterday that he was authorized by the courts to re-employ about 60 of the workers to carry out repairs on a Zim Lines freighter and on a ship of the U.S. Sixth Fleet. The Shipyards had been losing $600,000 a month for lack of construction and repair orders.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
