Strikes Planned For Israeli Post And Ports

Workers at the National Insurance Institute and Postal Authority will begin a series of open-ended sanctions as a prelude to a general strike, while port workers are continuing the sanctions they launched on Sunday. The Histadrut, which is preparing for a general strike in the public sector, is considering unconventional methods of fighting the austerity plan, like cutting off the government complex from water, electricity and telephone lines. “Since the police will not let us surround the government complex, we will cut off the water and power supply, phone lines and other services of all cabinet ministries nationwide,” said Eti Peretz, chair of the social workers’ union. Peretz also proposed that the public sector workers may not strike at all, thus sparing the public any inconvenience and preventing animosity toward the workers. Peretz called the austerity plan “a sick patchwork” and said Prime Minister Ariel Sharon “is acting like a visitor in his own country and has no interest in the social rumbling caused by the finance minister.” The 2,500 workers in NII branches (except in Jerusalem, where they will work as usual) will only admit the public on Sunday and Thursday, and will intensify the measures during the week. Post office workers will start sanctions in protest of the government’s decision to turn the authority into a government corporation as of 2004. Post office branches will close at 2:30 P.M. every day. Port workers are disrupting loading and unloading ships for three days, in protest of the government’s decision to turn each of the three ports into a government corporation, weakening the Port Authority’s powers. The workers say this decision is in violation of the former finance and transport ministers’ undertaking to turn the ports into subsidiaries of the Port Authority.