Israel: Wave of strikes over economic program

national | miscellaneous | news report Saturday March 29, 2003 10:42 by kibbutz

Wave of strikes over economic program slated for next week By Haim Bior, Mazal Mualem and Relly Sa'ar A wave of strikes prompted by the government's new economic program is slated to begin next week, with the civil servants and the schools beginning partial sanctions on Sunday and the local authorities starting a full-fledged strike on Tuesday.

The local authorities are also planning a full-fledged strike on Tuesday, but theirs will be open-ended. The strike means there will be no garbage collection, no municipal welfare services, no security guards in schools and no assistants in the kindergartens.

According to the local authorities, they declared the strike because the government's economic program will cause "the collapse of what remains of the welfare state" and will "paralyze the local authorities."