Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Transportation Minister Avigdor Lieberman are scheduled to meet Friday with Histadrut labor federation chief Amir Peretz for talks aimed at ending a strike by seaport workers, Israel Radio reported.
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On Wednesday, Netanyahu wrote Peretz, calling on him to enter into negotiations to end the strike at the ports, which is badly hurting exporters and importers. Netanyahu asked Perez to meet with him and with the transportation minister. "I call on the Histadrut led by yourself to join the national effort in successfully implementing reform of Israel's ports," Netanyahu wrote. The reform's primary objective is to spin off and create three competitive ports, for the greater good of the general public, the finance minister wrote.
The labor union representing striking port workers agreed on Wednesday afternoon to allow passenger ships to dock and unload. Workers however continued to block cargo ships from docking.
The decision to allow the passengers to disembark was designed to reduce the public's discomfort and had been at Perez' behest, the union added.
Transportation Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Wednesday ordered workers at Ben-Gurion International Airport to open emergency doors near passport control in the arrivals’ hall to enable passengers to bypass customs where officials are on a go-slow. Customs workers have caused long delays at the airport by conducting extraneous checks.
Cabinet ministers meanwhile on Wednesday approved an unparalleled series of three counter-actions against the port strikers:
One: The Ports Authority must pay the government NIS 200 million "special fees" by November 2, 2003. The money will go to compensate exporters and importers hurt by the port work stoppage.
Two: The government proposes that exporters and importers redirect their shipments through Egyptian and Jordanian ports. The cargo will then be transported over land to their destinations in Israel. The costs would be much higher for the exporters and importers. But the treasury proposes giving $200 for the transport of each container brought to and from Israel via these alternative routes.
Third: The cabinet empowered the finance minister to immediately submit legislative amendment proposals for reform at the ports. Implementation of the reforms would begin in December 2003, which was the original target date in the 2004 budget proposal. The reform involves turning the Eilat, Haifa and Ashdod ports into discrete government companies, which would compete with each other. This is the proposal that has the port workers up in arms.
Moreover, port workers deliberately slowing down work (working part-time, as it were) will receive no pay for the duration of the strike, the cabinet decided. That decision is in keeping with a ruling by the Civil Service Commissioner from Monday.
Lieberman has also ordered that construction work on a private port area in Haifa begin as of Thursday, if the strike does not end by then. The government has never before used a private port to bypass a strike.
The strike by 50,000 civil servants entered its third day Wednesday. Among those striking and instituting work sanctions are Customs, National Insurance Institute, Ma'atz Public Works Authority and Employment Service workers, as well as airport and harbor employees, and clerks in the Land Registry, courts, and tax collection agencies.
Workers at Israel's three seaports - Haifa, Ashdod and Eilat - began their strike at 6 A.M. Tuesday after a breakdown in overnight talks between Lieberman and Peretz.
Some 2,500 workers at the three ports, as well as staff at the Ports Authority headquarters in Tel Aviv, joined the nation-wide public-sector strike - called in protest at planned cuts to state and welfare spending.
Sources at the treasury said Tuesday evening that the government would do everything it could to maintain Israel's international trade, despite the strike.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Tuesday that it was easy to see that the port workers' strike was a political move aimed at disrupting government work
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