The Ministerial Economic Committee decided today to keep all 650 employes of the financially ailing Haifa Shipyards on the payroll pending the report of a special committee of experts on plans to re-organize the government-owned shipbuilding and repair facility on Haifa Bay and make it economically viable.
The workers were ordered on a payless furlough of indefinite duration last week by the government-appointed receiver, Amiram Blum. The order was upheld by a Jerusalem district court, and the workers barricaded themselves behind the shipyard gates. Histadrut announced yesterday that it would call a brief general strike in the Haifa area next week if the furloughed employes were not reinstated, to be followed by a call for a nationwide general strike if necessary.
Blum said yesterday that he was authorized by the courts to re-employ about 60 of the workers to carry out repairs on a Zim Lines freighter and on a ship of the U.S. Sixth Fleet. The Shipyards had been losing $600,000 a month for lack of construction and repair orders.
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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.
