A rash of strikes and job actions today disrupted the normal functioning of the school system and a variety of other public services indicating widespread dissatisfaction in fields ranging from education to industry.
Teachers, from the primary grades through the teacher training seminaries conducted classes for only two hours today in their continuing protest
against the government’s failure to implement the latest wage agreement. Private nursery schools remained closed because their owners are demanding the right to charge higher fees. They have rejected the government’s offer of a partial subsidy.
Post Office technicians who staff the telephone and telex services held shop meetings during working hours to protest the government’s failure to implement a plan to convert the Communications Ministry into a public corporation. The conversion would mean an immediate raise in salaries for employes. The work stoppages fouled communications and silenced radio and television broadcasts for two hours.
SLOWDOWN CAUSES POWER BLACKOUTS
A work slowdown by employes of the Israel Electric Corp. resulted in intermittent power blackouts during the day. The electrical engineers and technicians are demanding higher wages. The protest fever spread to the Defense Ministry where employes staged their first-ever job action, refusing to receive the public or issue documents. The most bizarre strike occurred in the rabbinical courts where employes walked out to back their demands for equality of pay and working conditions with employes of the civil courts.
Meanwhile, drivers of the Dan bus cooperative in the Tel Aviv area threatened to go on strike next Sunday. El Al, the perennially troubled national airline, faces a pilots strike next month and its management reportedly is drawing up plans to keep the company functioning. The pilots said they will strike if they are not paid part of the severance compensation they were promised they would receive in April in exchange for their agreement a year ago to accept pay cuts.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
