General Strike Briefly Shuts Down Israel
A general strike by Israel’s public sector ended on Monday after four hours of near paralysis across in the economy.
The strike took place from 6:00 A.M. to 10 A.M., after Labor Court President Nili Arad decided after a night of deliberations to limit it to only four hours.
The strike included trains, buses, universities, government ministries and municipalities. Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv was also closed.
Due to the strike, many Israelis prepared accordingly and opted to take other modes of transportation rather than trains and buses, causing massive traffic jams.
Israeli airline El Al decided to reschedule all of its flights to Sunday night, so most people were able to fly out of Israel before the strike took effect.
The Labor Court finished its deliberations in the early morning hours, but sent off its decision limiting the duration of the strike only after the strike began. The deliberations took over five hours, after talks between Ofer Eini, head of the Histadrut Labor Federation and Finance Minister Steinitz ended without a breakthrough.
The Histadrut, the umbrella organization for hundreds of thousands of public sector workers, wants the government to hire some 250,000 contract workers, who have working conditions that are inferior to those of civil workers that are directly on government payrolls.
For more, go to []Haaretz.com](http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/israel-s-general-strike-ends-after-four-hours-of-disruptions-1.394171 “]Haaretz.com”)
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
