Productivity of Blue Collar Workers in Israel Lags Behind Those in the U.S. and European Countries

Knesset members were visibly shaken today by reports that Israeli workers produce only half of what American workers produce and from one-third to two-thirds the production of workers in France, Holland, Sweden or Switzerland, Labor Minister. Moshe Baram conceded that the productivity of Israeli workers has hardly increased in recent years and prospects for the coming fiscal year indicated a mere one percent rise in productivity.

The MKs reacted to these figures according to party line. Likud spokesman-Avraham Katz blasted Histadrut for “paying too much attention” to trivial clauses in labor contracts and “no attention at all to the basic issue of an honest day’s work for honest pay.” But Mrs. Shoshana Arbeli-Almosline, a Labor MK who chairs the Knesset Labor Committee, blamed low productivity on the low estate in which blue collar workers are held in Israeli society.

“What could motivate a man to take a tough job in a factory when he sees his friends earning more by working in the services in air conditioned offices with short hours in the summer?” she asked. She said that the dissatisfaction of factory workers with their wages and working conditions resulted in massive absenteeism which cost Israel four million workdays last year alone.

The left-wing Moked demanded that workers participate in management; Yehuda Shaari, of the Independent Liberal Party, observed that if Israel could achieve the productivity rates of the Western European countries it could wipe out its $3.6 billion balance of payments deficit. Each percentage point of increased productivity equals $120 million earned for the national economy, he said.

The government, which is debating an IL 84.2 billion austerity budget for the next fiscal year, has announced the intention to transfer 100,000 workers from services to productive industries over the next four years.