The Israel Medical Association voted today to instruct all of its members in public employment to strike in solidarity with the 200 physicians employed by the Hadassah-Hebrew University Hospital, supporting a demand by the latter that they receive retroactive pay increases. The wage hike, retroactive to April 1960, amounts to 600,000 Israeli pounds ($336,000).
The hospital physicians carried out a three-hour “warning” strike last Thursday, and are talking about a full walk-out, with the support of the institution’s 1,200 non-medical personnel, if the retroactive pay demands are left unmet by the end of this week.
Hospital representatives of Hadassah have said they cannot meet the wage deficit without help from the Israel Treasury. Contributions from the American organization finance 60 percent of the hospital budget, while the remainder is met by fees for services. The hospital physicians have adopted a resolution approving Hadassah’s demands on the Treasury for “a more realistic” rate of exchange for the dollars contributed to the hospital’s operations.
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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.
