Full agreement has been reached on “all matters of principle” between government doctors ordered back to work last week and the Israel Civil Service Commission, it was reported here last night. The back-to-work orders were rescinded by the Cabinet Sunday after the doctors gave assurances this would not lead them to resume their strike over pay and other issues. The doctors then resumed negotiations with the Civil Service Commission, the government agency responsible for pay and working conditions for government workers. At the same time, the Post Office announced that its branches throughout Israel will close daily at 3 p.m., effective today, because postal workers have started a series of actions to protest what they call delays in implementation of a labor agreement approved last Dec. Counter clerks are refusing to work shifts but are working straight shifts ending at 3 p.m. Sorters are refusing to work more than a seven-hour day and delivery men will not work more than eight hours a day. The refusal to put in overtime will increase the present backlog of mail in sorting centers and in deliveries to homes.
A steady stream of complaints about delays and erratic delivery of mail has been pouring into the Post Office and to newspapers in recent weeks but Post Office spokesmen deny that mail sorters and delivers have been conducting a work slowdown in protest against what they claim is low pay. The workers also refuse to confirm such reports. The chairman of the Government Doctors Association, Dr. Gideon Maneils, said the main hurdle toward a settlement of the government doctors dispute–recognition of the Association as qualified to negotiate for the government doctors–had been overcome. Later he reported that all other issues of principle had also been settled. The main complaint of the government doctors was understood to be that their conditions of work are inferior to those of doctors in the Histadrut sick-fund hospitals, particularly in regard to the work load and to the condition of the hospital buildings and equipment with which they work.
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