Clalit reaches deal, ends strike

The strike in the Clalit Health Maintenance Organization ended yesterday following an agreement between the HMO's workers union and the Finance Ministry.

Clalit's 15,000 administrative, support, technical, maintenance and sanitation workers - who had been on strike since Sunday - returned to work yesterday after the treasury agreed to give them an 8 percent wage increase, in addition to the 5 percent increase they are to get in the public sector's wage agreements.

The three-year agreement, reached with Histadrut chairman Ofer Eini's intervention and mediation, stipulates industrial silence for the duration of the agreement and various streamlining measures.

The workers had demanded a 24 percent wage increase, like the one recently obtained by the doctors.

"We welcome the agreement which is to the benefit of both staff and patients," workers' union chairman Prosper Ben-Hamo said yesterday.

During the strike Clalit's hospitals postponed hundreds of operations every day and patients suffered from an acute shortage of medical supplies, including syringes and other basic equipment. Garbage piled up in hospital corridors and patients could not get any assistance to go to the bathroom or showers, or have their bedclothes changed. Regular meals were not served in the wards either.

The union said earlier this week that it was disgraceful that thousands of health care workers were earning less than minimum wage and were forced to receive income support to survive.