This article was first published in the July-August 1998 issue of the Jewish Frontier. It chronicles another election upset in which a little known Amir Peretz prevailed.
There was little surprise when Amir Peretz was elected Chairman of the Histadrut, Israel’s General Federation of Labor, in this past June’s election. Having inherited the leadership mantle when Haim Ramon resigned to return to active political life, he had been the favorite going into the election. This, despite an unexpected challenge by MK Maxim Levy, the brother of MK David Levy, Israel’s former Foreign Minister and head of the populist, right of center Gesher party. The uncertainty was how close would be the results.
Peretz’s defeat of Levy was more impressive than most analysts had predicted. Having received nearly 78 percent of the votes cast, against his opponent, whose Gesher-Meretz coalition attracted about 22 per cent of the voters, Peretz emerged as a powerful force. Even Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quickly expressed his hopes that he could work “in cooperation with the Histadrut under your leadership”.
Until recently, the traditional and somewhat mythical image of the Histadrut was that of a powerful worker’s organization, which also served as a source of support for the Labor Party. If nothing else the election demonstrated the actuality of today’s Histadrut. No longer dominated by avowed Marxists, the New Histadrut (“HaHistadrut Hahadasha”), as it is called in some circles, came out of the election reflecting a profound reshuffling of political life.
Writing in the Jerusalem Post, on the eve of the elections, Daniel Bloch, a veteran journalist who edited the now defunct Labor newspaper, Davar, and a keen observer of Israel’s labor sector, argued that Israel needs “a strong HISTADRUT workers’ organization”. Such a force, he maintained, is “an important tool of modern society.” In the past Bloch had hoped that the Histadrut would undertake dramatic and necessary reforms, to liberate it from the past and adjust it to new realities, as had “most Labor movements in the democratic world.” While the Histadrut is certainly different from what it was, even a decade ago, “dramatic reforms” have yet to take place.
It is true that most of its financial holdings, created in part when Israel was still in the process of becoming a state, have been privatized. The famed medical and health care system, Kupat Holim Clalit, had been severed from the Histadrut by Haim Ramon. With it went the health group’s members who were automatically members of the Histadrut. Furthermore, an automatic taxation system has been all but abolished, while the kibbutzim, long a powerful element within the Histadrut, are still going through their own radical transformation process, so necessary to remain economically viable. They are hardly a force within the labor federation.
The changes which have already taken place resulted in a drop in income as well as membership, and the Histadrut became an organization without a regular source of income. As a result, when Amir Peretz replaced Ramon he set an aggressive course to increase membership. An enlarged membership would demonstrate to the government and to industrialists that the Histadrut had to be considered when financial and budgetary decisions were to be made. Membership dues, just under 1 per cent of salary, would help provide the necessary financial ballast. Attracting and retaining new members, or bringing back the hundreds of thousands who fled when the health plan was privatized, meant that the labor federation had to provide those members with measurable and specific benefits and gains for their dues.
In December of last year Peretz and his trade union department succeeded in organizing a nationwide strike over the issue of pension agreements. While it only lasted two days, it demonstrated that the Histadrut was well on its way to becoming a true representative of
the workers, and that, despite a weakened federation, worker solidarity had held fast.
In the months before the election Peretz understood the need to demonstrate that he had a social vision for the Histadrut and for the nation. In fact the impressive victory, despite a low voter turnout, helped define Peretz as a social leader in his own right and placed him in the top ranks of the Labor Party. Not close to party leader Ehud Barak, Peretz has even hinted in the past that he might leave Labor in order to organize a worker’s party. While the victory strengthened that potential threat, it also propelled Barak to quickly and enthusiastically congratulate Peretz.
Peretz was concerned about predictions that there would be a low voter turnout. He blamed the media “which is visible in the reserve they show toward social problems and toward the Histadrut elections.” His worst fears came true since only 40 per cent of eligible voters ? about 250,000 – actually went to a polling station to choose the federation’s leadership. The voters numbered about 12.5 per cent of the country’s salaried workers, including the unemployed.
How to account for the low turnout, and the seeming indifference of Histadrut members, despite a recession and growing unemployment? As has happened elsewhere, workers become apprehensive during a period of unemployment, which decreases the bargaining power of unions and workers’ influence on economic or political events. Unions are in a stronger position when there is full employment and a shortage of workers, clearly not the situation in Israel. Furthermore, the growing presence of thousands off foreign workers, legal and illegal, hovered as a fringe issue.
Peretz’s victory certainly reflected the image he has begun to create of one who is committed to organizing more workers, and of ensuring that they benefit from Histadrut membership. It also resulted from the oddball coalition of Labor, Likud, the Orthodox Shas, the Russian emigre controlled Yisrael B’aliya, and the Arab Democratic Party. Peretz did not see this coalition as odd but, in fact, he hoped it would “unify residents of the development towns and the poor neighborhoods and the Israel Arabs over issues of livelihood.”
The political marriage of the left-wing Meretz, and David Levy’s right-of-center Gesher party, did not seem out of place to Maxim Levy. He saw their ideological cooperation as one which placed them both in “the social camp” which would likely expand in light of the government’s economic policies. Kibbutz members, who had been allied with Meretz and voted in the election, had the greatest difficulty in accepting the alliance, even if it were merely one of convenience.
The agreement had its origins in a decision by Meretz, after losing Knesset seats in the 1996 elections. In an effort to reach out to new voters, Meretz leaders decided to build a dialogue with Sephardi Jews. A few months ago the two parties found themselves working together in the Knesset to block the government’s free-market policies which, they agreed, would hurt Israel’s economically deprived population groups.
When Peretz began to forge a wall-to-wall coalition of parties, Meretz insisted that it could not support him if he included the ultra-Orthodox and doctrinaire Shas party.
While waiting for a decision, Meretz agreed to support Levy, whose Gesher party sought a high profile in the Histadrut as a means to promoting brother David’s prime ministerial ambitions. The matter will become more complex if Prime Minister Netanyahu attempts to bring Gesher back into the government, after many months in exile, in order to build support for any peace initiatives he might launch.
Peretz used the campaign to criticize the social and economic policies of the Netanyahu
government, accusing the governor of the Bank of Israel, Jacob Frenkel, as well as the Minister of Finance, Yaakov Ne’eman of a “competition” to determine “who is the bigger enemy of the workers” . The attacks on ministers of a Likud-led government, from a man whose own election success reflected a coalition between Labor and Likud within the Histadrut, seemed odd. Even for Israel. Yet, no one blinked.
Peretz immediately proposed that the government, the industrialists and the Histadrut should cooperate to battle unemployment, which he set as the major priority in the months ahead. While supporting a “free market”, Peretz also stressed a readiness to battle against the privatization of government companies sold to “too many American billionaires (who) have made a fortune by buying Israel companies” but, he insisted, leave very little for the local economy.
Another issue with which the Histadrut will contend is the role of private agencies who “exploit workers in Israel.” He was especially critical of those who “import foreign workers . . . to exploit (them) and to rake in a fortune,” calling such practices “slave trade” which must be stopped. Likely to be revisited is the issue of protecting pension rights, especially those of municipal employees, an issue which precipitated last December’s highly successful strike.
Adding to Peretz’s concern is the fact that a umber of unions have weak or non-existing ties to the Histadrut. They include the secondary school teacher’s association, the teachers
union, the medical union, and several sector-specific unions, such as engineers and academics, who had begun to assert their independence by setting their own professional policies. As the Histadrut lost some of its influence, workers’ committees at large enterprises have become more assertive, often setting their own agendas. These are matters which Peretz cannot ignore as he attempts to expand Histadrut membership, and to demonstrate that the venerable federation is still relevant to a changing Israel.
The Histadrut has completed only about half of the process of reinventing itself. The leadership will continue to face internal as well as external issues in the months ahead. It is not clear what long-range vision Peretz has for the federation, much less if he succeeds in getting there.
What is clear is that the Histadrut seems to be moving away from its role as a general trade union, and to becoming more narrowly defined. Will the New Histadrut be modeled on the labor movements in Germany and in Scandinavia? Will it become a loose federation like our AFL-CIO? And who will provide the answers?
