Leaders of the leftist Mapam Party were reported today to have intimated they would quit Premier Levi Eshkol’s coalition if the Cabinet refused to implement the agreement made last year with Histadrut, Israel’s labor federation, for payment of cost-of-living allowances during 1967.
Mapam leaders reportedly made this position known before meeting with the Premier and with Economic Ministers of the Mapai-Achdut Avodah alignment, the dominant factor in the coalition. The Premier and the Ministers are trying to work out a wage policy for the current year.
The Government is under heavy pressure from other coalition partners and from Israeli manufacturers to withhold cost-of-living allowances this year because of Israel’s continuing economic pinch. Right-wing coalition partners, moreover, oppose proposals for a compulsory loan to subsidize jobless payments to Israel’s unemployed workers or for aid to industry.
Mr. Eshkol was continuing his consultation today with leaders of the coalition parties, starting with Mapam and the Independent Liberals.
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