They're turning to the union

As "secretary of the National Association of Security, Cleaning and Nursing Care" in the Histadrut labor federation, Sima Ramati oversees 200,000 workers. Among them are about 70,000 security guards, 70,000 cleaning staff and 50,000 nursing care workers. But Ramati says that, "It's clear that the real numbers are much higher." Yet among this large workforce, made up mostly of young people who have only recently completed military service, only 200 to 400 workers are unionized and represented by a committee - a drop in the bucket. While Ramati acknowledges that "one can count the committees on one hand," she adds that activity has increased over the last year with workers beginning to take an interest and even organize, including those youngsters who grew up in a world in which the labor union lacked the power it once had.

According to recent studies, the proportion of organized labor in Israel has dropped from 80 percent, in the mid-1980s, then the highest level in the West, to about 35 percent today, one of the lowest in the West. It is clear that the masses of unorganized workers are not starving; yet many are working far harder and receiving less money than is legally allowed. They have no one to turn to and no one to enforce their rights.

As the public sector strike took place this week, this issue briefly popped up on the agenda as well: Tel Aviv's Labor Court decided to return Alon-Lee Green to work. Green is a young man from Tel Aviv who was fired - according to the court ruling - because he tried to establish a workers' committee in the Coffee Bean chain of cafes. Green's social views are well-established - at age 18 he joined Israel's Communist Party - but he is not alone. One does not need to be a Communist in order to organize. "We are still a tiny minority," says Kobi Karta, who established a committee of security guards at the Hebrew University's agriculture faculty in Rehovot, "but I believe it is possible to fight and to change."

As the stories of four people who have tried to establish committees testify, they can expect to experience difficult struggles. Of the four, three found themselves fired. Karta is the only one whose committee continues to operate. The Labor Court has intervened on behalf of two of the activists who were fired from their respective places of employment: It has returned Green to work and it ruled that Danit Regev, who was fired after she tried to establish a workers committee at a telephone reservations center, should receive higher compensation. Yet their work places still do not have committees. The fourth activist is now unemployed - he has not received any compensation nor has he managed to establish a workers committee. He asked not to be mentioned in this article although he says he has no regrets, just like the other three.

Afraid of being fired

Alon-Lee Green began working at Coffee Bean behind the counter and was quickly promoted to shift manager, making NIS 23 an hour. Officially, a shift lasts eight hours, but many employees often worked for up to 12 hours. Green discovered that many times workers were not paid at a higher rate for overtime. In addition, if employees stayed until closing time, late at night, they had to pay for the cab home out of their own pockets. He came across other injustices, too: Workers were not allowed breaks and, most annoying of all, the tips each worker received were used to cover shortfalls in the cash register. "And there is always a shortfall in the cash register," says Green. When the workers complained, notes Green, "the managers said: 'At the end of the month you'll get goody bags.'" But they were reimbursed for the tips only after several months had passed.

Although everyone was bitter, it was he, the youngest, who did something about it. He made a list of the things that he deemed needed to be addressed urgently, "the issues I thought would speak to people most," he says. "Initially, the workers reacted with despair and a sense that nothing could be changed. Some of them told me: 'If you're not satisfied, then go somewhere else.' Others were afraid of getting fired. But I gave them hope. I said that if we speak in one clear voice, management will not be able to ignore us."

Within a short time most workers signed a document that detailed a few of the basic problems, headed by the demand that the committee be recognized. At first management said it was "illegal" to establish a committee in the private sector. Then it claimed that it had no objection to the establishment of a committee, but added that there was no need for one. Shortly after the document was submitted, Green was fired. The Histadrut, which followed the developments, gave him legal advice and this week, as noted, the Labor Court ordered that he be returned to work. Has he won? Green thinks he has, although the committee has yet to be established.