A wildcat strike by merchant mariners was settled today but a far more serious labor crisis loomed as 2500 salaried physicians employed at government, municipal and private hospitals and by the Histadrut sick fund handed in mass resignations effective Dec. 1. The physicians took the action after they were censured at yesterday’s Cabinet meeting for resorting to a rule-book work slowdown this past month in support of demands for additional pay and easing of their work load.
The Cabinet decided to set up a ministerial committee, headed by Premier Yitzhak Rabin, to deal specifically with the doctors. A ministerial committee already exists to handle labor troubles and wage policy. The physicians saw the establishment of yet another deliberative body as a stalling tactic intended to postpone a decision. “Our presentation of resignation notices is a move of despair.” a spokesman for the doctors said. The work slowdown will continue.
Finance Ministry officials said the physicians’ demands for stand-by pay and extra shifts could result in total collapse of an already shaky wage policy. They said that even if the demands are justifiable, yielding to them would only bring similar demands from other sections of the labor force. As of this morning, the government’s policy was to accept some of the resignations but to reject others and order the doctors to stay on the job.
DOCTORS STAGE DEMONSTRATION
In Tel Aviv, hundreds of physicians demonstrated today outside the office of Prof Chaim Doron, acting chairman of Kupat Holim, the Histadrut sick fund to whom their resignation notices were presented. Doctors employed by the government handed in their notices to Prof. A. Mentchel, director general of the Health Ministry.
They were particularly incensed by remarks by Health Minister Victor Shemtov last week who cited one physician for allegedly refusing to admit an ailing woman to a government hospital because of the slowdown. The woman was sent to another hospital where she died.
Resignation notices from municipal hospital employes piled up today on the desk of Mayor Shlomo Lehat. Mayor Y. Tzeisel, of Haifa, faced a similar deluge from doctors at the Rothschild Hospital there. In Jerusalem, physicians of Hadassah and Shaare Zedek Hospitals gave notice to the hospitals’ director generals.
ZIM SHIPS RESUME OPERATIONS
The seamen’s union, meanwhile, agreed to call off a strike by deckhands that idled 17 ships of the Zim Lines at Israeli ports over the weekend, and one Zim freighter at Bremen, West Germany. The latter vessel the Galila was the focus of the strike after her Master dismissed the bosun (deck crew foreman) for disciplinary reasons. Two officials of the union flew to Bremen to examine the situation. The Galila will remain there
The other Zim ships, freed from the strike, resumed normal operations today, easing the congestion at Haifa port where the idle vessels had kept incoming ships from utilizing berths and anchorages. (By Yitzhak Shargil)
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