Wednesday, December 6

Promises promises

Last week's strike was over quickly after promises were made by the government offices, to transfer money to the municipalities who have not been paying their employees' salaries for many months now due to their dire financial situation.
Some municipalities indeed paid, but he majority never received money and 12.000 employees and 40.000 pensioners are still waiting.
52.000 people who are not eligible for any social aid "because they receive a payslip", yet they only receive the slip without the money.
The strike may be renewed tomorrow.
The worker's unions have done everything to assist those workers. They went to court and the labor court decided in their favor, but the municipalities disregard the judges' decisions. They were asked to provided the government with a few days to find a solution. No solution has been found and days passed by.
52.000 are going hungry, cannot buy medicine or pay for their housing. Their children do not have school books. When will this stop?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

"40.000 pensioners are still waiting"

Don't really understand the above.Are the 40 000 pensioners retired and not working,but are waiting for a salary from the municipality and get the normal state pension(HaMosad Bituach Leumi)as well ??

yudit said...

When municipal employees reach the age of pension, their pensions are paid for by the municipality for which they worked.
Thus, when the municipalities stopped paying their employees their wages, they stopped paying their pensioners as well.

Anonymous said...

In any case, it's a moot point as things stand. Even if they were SUPPOSED to get a double payment, it would still all be theoretical anyway. The fact is that atm - they are getting nothing at all.
Medinat Sa'ad alek.

yudit said...

One of the problems of Israeli society is that the majority of people do NOT have a pension plan.
People have paid social security all their lives, in the expectancy that by the time they'll be elderly, they will receive a state pension so the say.
As budget cuts have been made in the bituah leumi again and again and again, the monthly payment for the elderly is worth less than 400$. As a result, those who can, take out private pension plans. Yet many of the employers do not pay this.
Especially in low income groups (who live below the poverty line) people cannot afford to take out a private pension.
As a result the majority of the Israeli working population do NOT have any pension plans.
This is a social catastrophe in waiting.
Already today the MAJORITY of the elderly have to make a monthly decision between food and medicine. And this will get worse.

Anonymous said...

Add to this the raise in life expectancy, due to modern medicine which prolongues lives, cost of living indices and devaluation factors and what you get is quite frightening.