A-Infos (en) The background for the General strike in Israel public sector

[Ilan Shalif <gshalif@netvision.net.il>]

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Today, there is a general strike in the Israeli public sector.

Background follows:
Israel is not yet a regular capitalist state, but it is on the way
to become one.

Built as a settler colonialist entity, in a long process of more
than 100 years, with massive support of colonialist countries
at first, and later by the post colonial era imperialists - Israel
is on the verge of becoming a "normal" capitalist state.

The present general strike of the hundreds of thousands
workers of the public sector, is one of the turning points.

Till 22 years ago, the so called trade union was only one
tool of the Zionist settler colonialism. Till 1948 it was part
of the struggle to "conquer" the work places, and restricting
the Palestinian workers from being hired by Jewish
capitalists.

After 1948 war when Israel become an independent state,
the "Histadrut" - the so called general trade union, continue
to function as an auxiliary state capitalism concern and
as a tool to keep the emerging working class from rebelling.

Till 1977 the "public sector" consisted of 75% of the economy.
Its management was very similar to that of the Russian Soviet
Union. The Stalinist CP. was part of this sham trade unionism -
preaching for conquering it from within.

The only libertarian communist organization of Israel - built
in 1962, called in the first issue of its paper to dismantle the
big conglomerate of Histadrut sham trade union and build
a real trade union instead.

The 1977 general election put the end to the hegemony of
the National Socialists with their so called Histadrut
conglomerate, and the emerging nationalist bourgeoisie
replaced them.

They restricted the flow of money (mostly received as "aid")
from foreign imperialist sources to the Histadrut sector, thus
causing it to degenerate step by step. The result was that
the Israeli version of state capitalism was replaced with
a more regular capitalism. The Histadrut lost all its capital
and ability to employ a big bureaucracy.

The national socialist party was gradually transformed
to a more social democrat type with a strong ties with
the big capitalists.

The trade union section of the Histadrut remained the only
part of it that was not dismantled. This fact resulted in
its transformation to "regular" trade union which has to
satisfy some workers needs in order to collect their due
and keep them in line.

These days, the confrontation is around the general
contract for wages of public sector for the 1999 year.

The trade union demand 7% rise for all workers to
compensate for inflation of last year. The government
agree on 3+% claiming that the workers got the remaining
percents through various means like "expenses" and
automatic rising in rank.

The general strike or the threat to do it is like a ritual that
will decide according to the specific power balance what
the compromise will be.

As the election is near, it seems the compromise will tend
to be nearer to the 7% than the 3.5%.



--
Ilan
http://members.tripod.com/~alternativ_psy/anarchy.html
http://www.geocities.com/HotSprings/3150/Anarchy.html
Tel-Aviv, ISRAEL
(Occupied Palestain)



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