JERUSALEM (JTA) — The staff of Maariv has gone on strike for the first time in the Israeli daily newspaper’s 64-year history.
The Hebrew-language paper was not printed Wednesday and its website NRG has not been updated since Tuesday evening, when the employees walked off the job.
The action comes following the newspaper’s sale to Shlomo Ben Zvi, who the strikers say has violated the collective agreement he signed with them.
Ben Zvi said Tuesday that a percentage of the current employees would be absorbed into the new ownership’s operation, but at a lower salary to be determined by new negotiations.
"Maariv’s employees want to know how many of them will be hired and what the newspaper’s structure will be," the workers said in a statement, according to the Globes business daily.
Ben Zvi called the strike a breach of the collective agreement.
The lead story on the NRG website deals with the employee strike. There is no mention of the U.S. presidential election.
Maariv, which has been critical of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing goverment, is the third most read Hebrew-language paper in Israel behind Yediot Achronot and Israel Hayom.
