The message said,
“Workers at Teva come from all walks of life, Jewish, Arab citizens of Israel,
immigrants from Russia and Ethiopia. And it’s half women, half men,” he said.
“The workers are not the problem. The workers are the solution.”
The immigrants from Russia are most probably Jewish and were given immediate
citizenship. The Arab citizens do not have equal rights with Jewish citizens.
The Ethiopian immigrants are most probably Israeli citizens, but are treated
as if they were not, because Ethiopian Israeli citizens are treated very badly
in Israel, treated as if they were not Jewish. So I suspect that the problems
are more than just labor issues.
Miriam
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[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Roger Loran Bailey ;
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Sent: Sunday, December 24, 2017 1:18 PM
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Subject: [blind-democracy] Teva workers in Israel join together to fight layoffs
http://themilitant.com/2018/8201/820101.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 82/No. 1 January 1, 2018
(lead article)
Teva workers in Israel join together to fight layoffs
Dec. 18 protest by Teva Pharmaceutical workers outside factory in Jerusalem.
BY SETH GALINSKY
In one of the largest labor actions in Israel in recent years, thousands of
workers joined a four-hour general strike Dec. 17 in solidarity with Teva
Pharmaceutical workers fighting layoffs and plant closings announced Dec. 14.
Teva, the largest generic drug company in the world and one of Israel’s biggest
companies, plans to lay off 25 percent of its workers, including
1,750 of its 6,400 workers in Israel.
In Jerusalem, workers barricaded themselves inside a Teva factory and wouldn’t
allow supervisors to leave. All 11 of Teva’s factories and research facilities
went on strike Dec. 19.
“The layoffs are a big blow to working people in Israel,” Eliran Koznik, a Teva
worker and Histadrut union leader in Kfar Saba near Tel Aviv, said by phone
Dec. 18. “A lot of people believed that if you worked for Teva, you would have
financial security until you got your pensions.
It’s not like that anymore.”
“Workers at Teva come from all walks of life, Jewish, Arab citizens of Israel,
immigrants from Russia and Ethiopia. And it’s half women, half men,” he said.
“The workers are not the problem. The workers are the solution.”
While Teva produces scores of generic drugs, its biggest profit maker was
Copaxone, a drug for treating multiple sclerosis. But that patent expired and
Teva faces increased competition.
In a bid to strengthen its edge against rivals, Teva last year bought Activis,
a U.K.-based generic drug company, saddling itself with $35 billion in debt
just as prices for many generics were falling.
Over the last decade the Israeli government gave the company some $6.2 billion
in tax breaks and subsidies. That, along with ostentatious benefits to top
executives, irks many of the workers.
“Recently all of management got big bonuses,” Koznik said. “Why should workers
have to pay for bad administration?”
Teva workers learned about the cuts from the media. “Everything about the
layoffs and closing of some of the factories was a surprise to the workers,”
Koznik said. “We want Teva to negotiate with us.”
The composition of the workforce at Teva is not unusual for Israel. The
development of industry and growing numbers of Arabs, Jews and immigrants
toiling side by side have opened the door to deepening class struggle as
today’s crisis of capitalism unfolds.
A Dec. 15 article by Matti Friedman, Jerusalem-based correspondent for the
Toronto Globe and Mail, described a piece of the changing relations between
Jewish and Arab workers.
Friedman notes that after President Donald Trump announced Dec. 6 that
Washington would officially recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and
eventually move its embassy there, “Arab leaders called for ‘days of rage’ and
a chorus of Western observers predicted an explosion.”
But that’s not what happened. The protesters who showed up at Old Jerusalem’s
Damascus Gate “were outnumbered by journalists,” Friedman says. “There weren’t
spontaneous mass celebrations on the Jewish side or mass disturbances on the
Arab side. The past week has been fairly normal.”
“Nearly half the city’s Arab workers are now employed in Jewish areas,”
he said. “Salaries in Palestinian homes increasingly come from Israeli
employers,” so Palestinians and Jews in Israel “are becoming more tightly
entwined, and everyone has more to lose if things fall apart.”
Friedman says that anyone wanting to understand Jerusalem today needs to visit
the city’s Talpiot industrial zone. A big supermarket there is in “an Israeli
area,” he said, but of the 50-odd workers I counted among the aisles of produce
and cereal, at least two-thirds were Palestinian.”
A Jewish cashier was serving three Muslim women. At a SuperPharm an Arab female
pharmacist was “serving a Jewish woman with a prescription, a Jewish cashier
and two Arab guys stocking the shelves,” Friedman wrote.
“Ten years ago, it would have been remarkable to see Palestinian customers or
salespeople in a Jewish part of town, but today what’s remarkable is how
unremarkable it’s become.”
A new poll in Israel reports that 84.3 percent of Arabs and 63.7 percent of
Jews believe they should coexist. The study reports 84.2 percent of Arabs want
their children to learn Hebrew, while 56.4 percent of Jews think their kids
need to learn Arabic.
Anti-Israel boycott loses steam
This reality makes it harder to paint Israel as a pariah nation or an outcast
that should be destroyed. That’s one of the reasons the Boycott, Divest and
Sanctions movement against Israel is losing steam.
More musicians are refusing to give in to pressure to cancel their concerts in
Israel. Among musicians who have toured Israel recently or have upcoming tours
are Radiohead, Bon Jovi, Elton John, Neil Young, Bryan Adams, Nick Cave, Lorde
and the Cuban band Pasión de Buena Vista, formed in tribute to the
internationally known Buena Vista Social Club, which performed in Tel Aviv,
Jerusalem and Haifa in December.
In July Nasreen Qadri, an Israeli-Arab musician, wrote in Newsweek that
politically pressured cancellations are “hurting those who wish to promote
peace and tolerance in a troubled region.”
“I was born in Haifa and grew up in Lod — two cities with a mix of Arab and
Jewish communities, living side by side. It wasn’t always easy, but my personal
experience has taught me that open dialog is the only way to overcome our
differences,” she wrote. “Those who call for boycott are only trying to divide
us.”
A Dec. 8 editorial in the Jerusalem Post criticized a law passed in the Knesset
in March that bans entry to Israel of foreigners who publicly back the boycott.
“People should not be penalized for their political views. Truth is the best
remedy,” the editors said.
Related articles:
Migrant workers in Beijing mobilize to protest evictions
Quebec: Frame-up case against rail workers unravels On the Picket Line
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