Class Struggles in Israeli Ports

For nearly five years, negotiations on port reform have been going on in Israel, conducted by the dockers union, which is affiliated with the Histadrut union confederation and without any results.

As time has passed, the construction of two new privately held ports, whose opening is scheduled for 2021, has advanced a great deal, alongside the existing publicly owned ones in Haifa and Ashdod. Obviously, the investment is so the bourgeoisie, both foreign and domestic, can increase the rate of exploitation of the port workers.

Reform of the ports would involve a reduction in jobs, more competition between the ports of call, a reorganisation of pilots, tug boats and moorings, a deterioration in wage conditions and greater freedom for dismissal. As often happens, the bosses aim to break through on all fronts, with the hope of success in at least some of them.

The port of Ashdod, one of the most strategic sectors for Israeli capitalism, has reported earnings of more than 200 million Israeli Shekels (US$55,062,000, €46,944,000) in the last year alone. But it is also one of the industrial centres with the highest rate of unionisation, nearly 100%.

In April 2018, tired of the endless and inconclusive negotiations, and worried by the rumours in anticipation of the new ports opening, the patience of the workers ended. A couple factors were the straws that broke the camel’s back. First was the release of an audio recording in which the secretary of the Federation of Transport Unions – Avi Edri – suggested that Histadrut was willing to give in even if the demands of the union were not accepted during the negotiations.

The second is a judicial decree issued by the Labour Court which obliges dockers to recover certain quotas of quantity and intensity of work. From the last week of April through the beginning of May, there was a 20% drop in productivity compared with the same period last year, a 39% increase in the time it takes to process the goods arriving at the port, and therefore a decrease in profits. This data – produced by a statistical office paid by the companies – was presented as evidence of sabotage of production by workers. On the basis of the boss’ allegations, the Court issued a judgment where the dockworkers were accused of implementing what is curiously called an „Italian-style strike”, i.e. a voluntary slowdown in work activity. The dockers were ordered to recover the productivity allegedly lost and were warned not to take industrial action until the negotiation process was underway.

Thus on 9 May, without any prior notice and without consulting the Histadrut, the dockers of Ashdod and Haifa, led by the leaders of their trade union, left their jobs in an organized way, completely paralysing port activity, without establishing a deadline for the strike and, therefore, ripping up the court’s decree.

The bosses, as always happens in these cases, have begun to scream in their powerful press, about the damage to the economy of the country, the huge amounts of damaged and irrecoverable goods, astronomical losses every day, the rule of law, democracy, and the Histadrut as a necessary union collaborator.

The judiciary promptly declared the strike illegal, ordering the workers to „immediately stop the action” and warning the Histadrut to „apply its organizational power to force the dockers back to work”. A valuable demonstration of the nature of this trade union confederation.

The workers, using the methods of class struggle – autonomously and against the wishes of the all trade unions who have sold out to capital – found themselves facing all the ideological and repressive weapons of the ruling class. Starting with the collaborationist trade unions, passing to the mass media and supposed experts from the middle class. Finally on to brute repression, be it the judicial, the police, prison and, if necessary, the army.

The next day, May 10th, in the face of the continuation of the strike, the court gave a mandate to the police to search for and arrest the leaders of the dockers union. The Secretary of the Federation of Transport Unions, who is a member of the Histadrut confederation, stated that the leaders being sought were „untraceable” but that the confederation would „work as closely as possible with all available means to achieve a dialogue with them” (from the Histadrut online newspaper „Davar Rishon”, May 11th).

The judiciary, in Israel, like everywhere, is proclaimed by the bourgeois left as a bulwark of that counterrevolutionary myth of democracy. The courts have shown their nature by attacking the workers who dared to break out of a legal cage built in defence of the bourgeois regime of exploitation. The courts, criminalising and attacking the struggles of these proletarians with repression. „What has happened – Judge Ilan Atikh, vice-president of the National Labour Court and signatory of the judicial decree said to the bourgeois economic daily „Calcalist” on May 13th – is something unthinkable in a rule of law (…) it is not a particular issue but of national order (…) is something that can not go unnoticed”. We fully agree with this eminent member of the bourgeois regime. But we believe that we can aim even higher and more precisely: this is not a national issue but an international one and, above all, a class issue. It must not be passed over in silence, but must be brought to the attention of workers beyond national borders.

When the workers return to using the methods of class struggle, when they defend their class interest against that of the bourgeoisie, whose class interests are passed off as universal, it is something unthinkable for any capitalist regime, in that it is too dangerous – as well as unsustainable – to immediately take off the democratic mask and show the real face of capitalism’s dictatorship.

The National Labour Court has fined the Dock Workers Union leadership with disproportionately harsh fines of €25,000 each. The police have been ordered to search for them. They have also given them their final judgment, threatening imprisonment, as well as an increase in their fines for every hour the strike continues.

The Histadrut, for the entire duration of the strike, did not move a finger to help the dockers, placing a barrier between the federation and the dockers’ struggle. They worked to isolate it in order to help the bourgeois regime defeat it. Thus showing once again the federation’s nature as a union servile to Capital. This was confirmed by a statement of one of the federation’s leaders, confirming those of the magistrate: „For the Histadrut, the rule of law and respect for the law are a fundamental principle” („Ynetnews”, 10 May), to which the living and working conditions of the proletariat are subject, we add.

The repressive action combined with the isolation imposed by the Israeli regime union accomplished it’s aim of helping the bosses in trouble and on May 12th, after three consecutive days of total blockade of port activities and a demonstration lasting until late at night, with hundreds of workers outside of the court, the strike was suspended.

Before this outcome, the return to using the methods of class struggle was a victory in itself for the working class, which has been able to see how democracy is a mask of the political dominion of the bourgeoisie. It also showed how the Histadrut central trade union is an impediment to effective struggles, rather than a useful tool for this purpose.

In the following days, the Dockers asked the Histadrut to declare a legal strike, threatening to leave the Confederation if it wasn’t declared. They also demanded the Secretary of the Transport Federation – the Avi Edri mentioned above – to resign. The Histadrut, having achieved its real goal, began the procedure declaring the strike on June 12th. But on June 10th, the relevant governmental body refused to issue the permit.

The employers continued to complain about the fall in production rates. Histadrut, for its part, is on the verge of losing control of the workers, which we hope will happen as soon as possible. Such a collapse allows for the construction of a trade union organisation that does not claim, as the various puppets of the capitalist regime do, the “rule of law” and “legality” but the use of class methods of struggle: strikes without warning, to the bitter end, without minimum services.