Labour Day in the Shadow of War – A Special Interview

“May 1st is an opportunity to pause and look at the trends of the past year. It's clear that we’re in the midst of war, but we’re also deeply entrenched in the economic crisis caused by the war. For a long time now, the situation for workers has been worsening. Prices have risen, in some areas work has decreased, and economic hardship is very much present. People are feeling the financial strain, the difficulty of making ends meet.”

Reuma Schlesinger has been organising workers with ‘Power to the Workers’ [see comment below] for the last decade. In her current role as Head of the Central Division, she is responsible for supporting existing and new organising efforts in the [Central district] area. She experiences the tough trends in the labour market firsthand through two major unions she supports: the Holon Cultural Workers’ Union and the Community and Social Services Workers’ Union in Tel Aviv-Jaffa. In Holon, work has significantly slowed down. During wartime, the public consumes less culture. Hourly and temporary workers, whose wages depend on being called in for shifts, are especially harmed.

According to Schlesinger, since the war began, “People are really feeling the economic hit, the struggle to make ends meet. Workers are highly aware of every shekel they’re lacking. If there's a payroll error and they don’t get their money on time, they quickly reach out to us. They ask about holiday bonuses and when the benefits are being paid. There's a deep sense of fear. There have also been wartime cuts. The Ministry of Finance reached agreements with the Histadrut to cut salaries in the public sector, including all social services employees working under the salary commissioner [see comment below]. They’re experiencing a 3.3% monthly salary cut and the loss of one day of annual leave. Workers are feeling it, and we feel it too.”

How does the war affect labour struggles?

Schlesinger: “It’s hard to fight for wages and working conditions. Anything unrelated to the war or the hostages is hard to focus on, even for the workers. There’s a big concern about striking. A strike during wartime doesn’t play well with public opinion, and even workers are caught up in bigger and more urgent struggles. Complaining about pay cuts or demanding raises feels minor next to demands for the return of hostages or when facing friends and relatives who were harmed. So, for months, there was no energy for labour struggles. And in general, it’s become harder to talk about power dynamics at work, even among the workers themselves.

“The war and the economic pressure create survival-mode thinking. Workers feel they must accept whatever they’re given. If we manage to secure something, we have to seal the deal. On the employers’ side, some are using the crisis as an excuse to harm workers [pay and conditions], knowing it’s harder to demand raises right now.”

Worker rights in Israel were under threat even before the war. Are you seeing a continuation of that trend?

“Even during wartime, the systems keep running. The political system and the Ministry of Finance Salary Commissioner continue using the same practices that erode social services, the same services that enable us to live here.

“As crises multiply, both due to the war and the climate crisis, the state continues to undermine social services – those whose job it is to care for the elderly, at-risk youth, and people with mental difficulties. The state calls it ‘social procurement,’ meaning services are not provided directly by the state but outsourced to charities and companies through tenders. The theory is that this promotes ‘competition,’ ‘innovation,’ and ‘diversity.’ In practice, the state distances itself from its responsibility for the workers, leading to the services’ decline, and the system breaks down.

“For example, in case of a fire, homes for the elderly or youth shelters need to be evacuated. There must be professionals to manage this. Social workers and counsellors. Community centres must open in order for people to evacuate to safe spaces. But the roles aren’t staffed. It’s hard to recruit and retain workers. The wages set by state tenders are so low and stagnant that it’s getting harder to hire.”

“Let’s consider some of the institutions we are working with, caring for people with mental difficulties and at-risk youth. The state contracts charities to do this work, and periodically puts out new tenders to replace them, in the name of competition. This creates total uncertainty for workers, and incentivises organisations that don’t invest in retaining more experienced staff, because the state doesn’t reimburse the [added] pay [for experience]. So you see burnout. The ones who stay are incredibly dedicated, but they’re collapsing under the workload.”

“With the climate crisis, we need local, community spaces like libraries, for example. Safe, air-conditioned places where people can come together, and where need and hardship can be identified and flagged. Workers in these places should be better compensated, but their pay and treatment are leading to the decline of these services. [The state] puts less and less emphasis [on the climate crisis].”

Against the government's actions and policies, during the judicial overhaul and particularly with the government’s abandonment of the hostages, there were expectations in the democratic camp that labour unions, especially The Histadrut, would shut down the economy [i.e. call for a general strike] in protest. How did Power to the Workers respond to that?

“The war definitely raised the question of political strikes: Why isn’t The Histadrut declaring a general strike? Why aren’t we striking against the war or the government? There was a lot of discussion. We had to navigate our boundaries, what can be said within our unions, and what might fracture them in this polarised reality. Some topics we avoided. The sense of self-censorship was very difficult.

“You have to understand the context. Over the years, unions’ ability to strike over issues unrelated to workplace conditions has been nearly eliminated. Labour courts limit solidarity strikes, for example, to support the global increase of minimum wage or to join other unions’ struggles. They won’t approve them, and workers who strike risk penalties.

“So it’s very hard to shift from striking only over specific work conditions to a political strike. It’s hard to even imagine that. Our challenge as a democratic organisation is to confront these hard questions. First, we need to have these conversations within the union leadership team, then broaden the circles [of discussion]. We needed to talk over and act on the wider context: how and why workers’ rights are being eroded, who benefits from this, and the power dynamics that exist not only between employee and employer, but also between workers and regulators or the state, which empowers the regulator. It’s been a challenging year. We’ve spent a lot of time figuring out how to engage in this broader conversation without breaking our partnerships.”

Schlesinger is also a leader in "Ir Segula", a democratic residents’ movement represented in Tel Aviv-Jaffa’s city council. “The harm to workers and its impact on public welfare is very relevant to Tel Aviv,” she says. “People working for the city can’t afford to live in it. Not only that their wages erode, but their ability to rent in the city. Without solutions like public housing that make the city accessible to everyone, including workers and service providers, we’ll see more and more services vanish.”

Can you explain the connection between the struggles?

“For example, if education workers can’t live near their workplace, and if public transport isn’t good enough and the city suffers from traffic jams, then there won’t be anyone to run the after-school program, and it won’t open. Parents won’t have childcare options. So housing, education, and labour struggles are all connected.

“Also [public] library workers, community centre staff, these are people who interface with the public. Turnover and burnout among them have increased. There’s more demand for services in wartime: the youth centre also serves as a shelter. Staff need to open the shelter and support stressed-out youth. But if there’s a rocket attack and you can’t get to work because the centre has been closed by the management, hourly workers don’t get paid. So they’re vulnerable themselves.

“There’s a sense that everything is adrift. On one hand, workloads and stress are rising. On the other hand, deep insecurity and overwhelming pressure. It’s hard to recruit workers; youth counsellors do double shifts, work weekends, burn out faster, and leave sooner. It’s a self-perpetuating cycle. A strong union and good collective agreements for community and social care workers in the city are essential to improving these services.”

Were there reasons for optimism this year?

“In the year before the war, during the judicial overhaul, Forum Kohelet [see comment below] initiated legislation targeting organised labour. [They] tried to restrict our ability to collect union membership and handling fees, to enforce mediation instead of strikes, and to limit strikes in essential services, which would quickly expand to other sectors. Thankfully, for now, those initiatives haven’t progressed, though they could resurface.

“There were also successful struggles. HILA teachers [teachers specialising in working with at-risk youth - BK] led a long industrial action that resulted in new employment agreements. We achieved a very important agreement in the higher education [sector]. [We also reached] agreements and improvements of working conditions for lecturers in public colleges.

“In Holon’s cultural institutions, everyone heard about the fight to stop the closure of the comics museum and cuts to the budgets of cultural venues. But a few months before that, we signed agreements to raise the workers’ wages. Other victories came from outside Power to the Workers too, like the public psychologists’ agreements and others. There was also a national fight against the ‘public libraries’ law which prevented budget cuts for public libraries. An additional meaningful things was the publication [manuscripts] which are important for our work. For example, Nitzan Tenami’s book ‘Organising Work’ published by Nemala Press.”