Magistrate courts throughout Israel were closed today as the magistrates met at a special meeting to demand the 50 percent wage increase a special committee had recommended that Israeli judges should receive. District courts, however, were operating but the district court judges sent representatives to the meeting. A resolution was adopted at the meeting closing both courts for three days next week.
The judges are not calling their action a strike although this is the first time that judges in Israel have absented themselves from work in a labor dispute.
The 50 percent increase was recommended in order to allow the judges to live on their salaries without having to seek outside income. It has been approved by Justice Minister Shmuel Tamir as well as the Cabinet. But the government fears that if it gives such an increase to the judges, other government employes will ask for similar wage hikes.
The magistrates called their job action today after the Finance Ministry said it wanted to defer action on a raise for the judges until after an agreement is reached on a new contract with the Civil Servants Union.
The problem over the magistrates’ salaries is only one of many labor disputes going on in Israel. Violence broke out at the Central Bus Station here when striking salaried drivers of the Egged Bus Cooperative tried to prevent buses from leaving the station. The buses have been driven for the last two days by members of the cooperative while their wives replaced them at their office jobs. Several persons were injured at the bus station and several people were arrested. Police also clashed with striking drivers at the Histadrut headquarters.
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