Finance Minister Levi Eshkol and Pinhas Sapir, Minister of Trade and Commerce, continued today to fight hard to hold Israel’s economic lines against high increases of cost-of-living allowances to workers, due in July. While they met with leading industrialists here, the trade union department of Histadrut, the Israel Federation of Labor, confirmed today a previous decision, calling for payments of cost-of-living allowances on a higher scale, beginning in July.
Histadrut is under great pressure to call for full cost-of-living allowance boosts in July. Two leftist parties, Mapam and Ahdut Avodah, are demanding a special Cabinet discussion on the subject, But Mr. Eshkol is determined to ask Histadrut to postpone its insistence on raising wages in July to meet higher costs of living resulting from last February’s devaluation of the Israeli pound.
Mr. Eshkol and Mr. Sapir have; proposed that the increased cost-of-living allowances be paid through the issuance of new Government bonds–a step which Histadrut leaders feel, will not be acceptable to the Israeli workers.
The two Cabinet members are willing to relax certain Government regulations, easing taxation and surcharge payments, pledging the Government not to raise electricity costs, and lowering certain customs and duties. They hope that the burden of the higher cost-of-living allowances would not fall too heavily on the manufacturers, and that they might hold prices at the present levels for at least 18 months.
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