(Image Source: International Trade Union Confederation)

BY: KYLIE MCGIVERN

Israel’s main labor union is organizing an open-ended strike with the power to bring the nation to its knees.

MarketWatch lists the organizations the strike would affect.

“...the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, the airports and seaports, the train stations and buses, national and municipal government offices, the water and electric utilities, and the banks, reports say... Some 250,000 people are employed under contract in Israel and their terms of employment are usually weaker than those of directly employed staffers.”

Weaker employment terms are exactly what sparked the Histadrut union to flex its muscles. Haaretz reports the umbrella organization for public sector workers wants the government to hire the contract workers as full-time employees, to receive higher wages and full benefits.

Arutz Sheva reports...

“... the government has offered a compromise – the hiring of between 1,000 and 2,000 contract workers with full-time contracts – but the offer was rejected.”

The strikers say that’s not enough, but Israel’s finance minister insists the government is doing everything in its power to prevent the strike. He says...

“‘We believe that this strike is absolutely unnecessary. We agree with the Histadrut that something must be done to help contract workers.’ Steinitz said that he was very interested in improving the lot of Israeli workers in general. ‘We are the only country in the world that raised the minimum wage in the past year.’”

Unnecessary? Labor chairwoman MK Shelly Yachimovich says it’s anything but, voicing her support for the strike.

Globes quotes her saying:

"The struggle for contract workers' rights is the most important struggle facing Israeli society ... the way the hundreds of thousands of contract workers are currently being employed sets us back 150 years to the days of dark slavery when peoples' dignity was trampled upon..."

So, in what some are calling the struggle for social justice, how much will the strike translate to a financial struggle?

The Jerusalem Post explains.

“On Friday the Manufacturers Association applied to the National Labor Court for an injunction to halt the strike. The association said a general strike would cost the economy around NIS 330 million (shekels, or $90 million) each day, and emphasized that the damage could grow exponentially given the effects of global economic troubles on Israel.”

The National Labor Court is the only thing standing in the way of a nationwide strike, after pre-hearing negotiations with the Finance Ministry failed.