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Last update - 05:29 02/05/2008 Report shows workers lost NIS 8,000 each to employers' benefit By Ruth Sinai, Haaretz Correspondent Tags: Economy, Workers Wages  Venezuela's Socialist President, Hugo Chavez, on Thursday announced that in honor of May Day he is raising the minimum wage in the country by 30 percent. A similar gift would have been possible in Israel had the workers' share in the Gross National Income remained at 2003 levels. That year, workers received 66 percent of all income, the employers received 12 percent and the rest went to the state. From 2005-2007, however, the workers' share in GNI dropped to 62 percent while the employers' rose to 13 percent, representing a loss to each worker in each of these years, to the benefit of the employers, of about NIS 8,000. These figures are from the annual report issued this week by the Adva Center, which studies inequality in Israeli society. The report is based on data from the Central Bureau of Statistics, the Bank of Israel and the National Insurance Institute and demonstrates the increasing weakness of the country's work force. Although participation in the workforce and the number of full-time positions is increasing and unemployment is down, salaries lag far behind economic growth. In 2006, for example, the average hourly wage - NIS 42.90 - was only 20 agorot higher than in 2003. Hourly wages increased only in the fields of banking, insurance and business services while falling slightly everywhere else, particularly in education and in food services. Advertisement Monthly salaries increased by 3.9 percent between 2003 and 2006, well below the 5 percent growth rate of the economy in each of the past four years. Even the Bank of Israel raised an eyebrow at this in its recently issued report for 2007, noting that "a relatively modest increase in wages ... during a period of growth is difficult to explain." In noting that the share of workers in the GNI has been falling for two decades the central bank suggested a number of possible causes, including the fact that while many people had joined the workforce, their bargaining power had declined as well as the pressures of globalization to reduce wages. In its report, Adva suggests an additional reason: the increasing accumulation of power ¬ with the blessing of the state ¬ in the past 20 years, on the part of employers in general and those who control significant capital in particular. The workers' holiday With every passing year May Day - celebrated as the International Workers' Day - becomes more of a day for general social protest. Friday's Labor Day march in Tel Aviv, for example, includes a long list of organization not associated directly with workers' right: students' and women's groups, neighborhood activists and a range of political organization from the Young Communist League to Meretz Youth. Among the slogans under whose banners the participants will be marching, for example, are "Maintain the standard of living in light of the price hikes" and "The municipality is for everyone, not just the real estate sharks." "It's impossible to maintain the division between the struggle for workers' rights and the overall economic policy," Alon-Lee Green, the hero of the strike by employees of the Coffee Bean chain in Tel Aviv, which ended in March with an unprecedented revenue-sharing deal for the workers. "It doesn't matter whether your salary is cut or prices rise. Either way you're left with nothing," Green said. Residents of South Tel Aviv's Florentine who have banded together to fight a plan to turn the area into a luxury residential neighborhood also joined in. The protest march will begin from there, proceeding to the concentration of bank offices and personnel agencies at the intersection of Allenby St. and Rothschild Blvd. "The first of May is becoming more and more relevant for more and more people who want to feel they are not alone in the war of survival" says the chairman of the Student Union of the Academic College of Tel Aviv-Jaffa, Daniel Bronstein. "Not only terms of employment are important to Israeli workers, but also for their children to have access to high-quality education systems as well as good medical and welfare systems," he says. The American nightmare A week ago the New York Times published an article on the enormous increase in the number of prisoners in the United States. According to the report, "the U.S. leads the world in producing prisoners," with 2.3 million people behind bars. Out of every 100,000 Americans, 751 are in prison. If only the adult population is taken into account, one in 100 Americans is locked up. Of other nations in the world only Russia even comes close, with 627 prisoners for every 100,000 inhabitants. Experts interviewed for the article pointed to high levels of violent crime, harsh sentencing law, a legacy of racial tensions ¬ and the lack of a social safety net. The latter means that poor people who do not receive support turn to crime and instead of receiving educational or welfare support they are sent to prison. What's the situation in Israel? It depends on how you count. For criminals, the incarceration rate is about 150 per 100,000 ¬ like in England. If security prisoners are included, then the number rises to 305, well above any other Middle Eastern country. (In Syria and Egypt, for example, there are 58 and 87 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants, respectively.) Particularly worrying is the trend toward locking up more Israelis: According to the Israel Prison Service, between 2002 and 2006 the number of Israelis jailed for criminal offenses rose by nearly 30 percent, to about 9,000, while the number of people locked up for security offenses increased by 500 percent, to about 10,000. Related articles: Report: Inequality grows as top 1% earns same as bottom 25% A state of inequality Bookmark to del.icio.us   Hamas on the Holocaust Al-Aqsa TV claims Jews concocted the Holocaust. Grasping genocide How a non-Jew in Israel came to understand the Holocaust.   1.   Indifference of the social elite 08:24  |  Dror 02/05/08   2.   Formula for pain 08:38  |  Dror 02/05/08   3.   what a surprise! 14:14  |  Merle 02/05/08   4.   Dror 16:36  |  Danite 02/05/08

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