The Histadrut won their general strike after less than 24 hours. They got a 5% wage increase when the government's last offer was less than 1%. The public didn't rebel--and the courts supported the negotiating and strike process. American unions would salivate with such good labor laws. Meanwhile, to answer some of the questions on this site-Histadrut only supports workers (both Jewish and Arab) inside the international borders of Israel. In the occupied territories, there is a Palestinian General Trade Union federation, which is allied with Fatah (its general secretary was recently held against his will by the Hamas). Histadrut has good relations with this federation. Additionally, Histadrut does not work with migrant workers, but a wonderful NGO called Kav L'Oved does and its Migrant Workers Hotline.

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Israeli workers declared a general strike this morning at 6 am. The Histadrut trade union confederation, which represents all the public sector workers, declared the strike after reaching an impasse on wage and benefit increase negotiations with the Israeli government.There's no trash collection, no post office service, gov't ministry staff is not at work, no trains, the ports are closed--and the border crossings are closed. By tomorrow, if there isn't a resumption of talks, it's possible that air service will either be halted or disrupted. As an interested party (I'm due to fly out after a month here in a few days...), I am watching the news eagerly, but in the meantime, I am also using this time to reflect on how a strike says something about where Israel is in today's world.

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