The port of Haifa was at work again today at full speed, after 1,600 dockworkers and stevedores returned to duty this morning, ending their seven-week-long slowdown strike, which had clogged the port with nearly 40 ships and cost the ship owners an estimated $6,300,000.
The workers went back with a compromise settlement which granted them a 10 percent wage increase this year, and a rise next year which is not to exceed an additional 5 percent. In accordance with the settlement, a special committee was named last night to study the workers’ other demands, including their insistence that stevedores employed for eight years be given the status of permanent employes, entitling them to certain social welfare benefits.
The rulings by the five-man committee are to be binding on both sides, and the group is to hand down its decision within a month. Israel Garber, secretary of the Haifa Stevedores Union, said today: “It is still not clear whether the settlement is a victory for my men or not. Only when the committee hands down its decisions regarding our outstanding claims will we be able to see how we stand.”
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