Fuel strike in Israel threatens to disrupt daily life September 5, 2000 Web posted at: 7:24 AM EDT (1124 GMT)

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Employees of the state-owned fuel supply monopoly went on strike Tuesday to protest government plans to split the company in two and privatize it.

The Petroleum and Energy Infrastructure Ltd. owns and operates 98 percent of the market. Workers said only military facilities would be exempt from the cutoff.

The strike could bring the country to a standstill, grounding civilian airplanes, cutting off power stations that operate on diesel and fuel oil and drying up gas pumps. The Israel Electric Company told Army radio power stations had enough supply for five days.

Shaul Hazan, general director of Aviation services at Ben Gurion International Airport, said he did not expect an immediate threat to flights since fuel reserves at the airport would last one day and trucks were bringing gas overland

A spokesman for the National Infrastructure Ministry, Moshe Friedman, said that negotiations with the workers were being conducted in "a good atmosphere."

Privatization would not "harm ... the workers, the workplace, or working conditions," said the statement from Friedman

http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/meast/09/05/israel.fuelstrike.ap/index.html

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), September 05, 2000

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Privatization Woes in Israel The Associated Press, Tue 5 Sep 2000

JERUSALEM (AP)  After a day of disrupted telecommunications and a nationwide cutoff of energy supplies, Israeli telephone and fuel pipeline employees went back to work on Tuesday, ending brief strikes that threatened to cripple the country.

Israel's labor unrest stems from the government's drive to sell off state-owned companies.

Another potential labor conflict loomed as the transport minister said he may lift the ban on flights during the Jewish Sabbath for Israel's national airline, El Al, which also is a candidate for privatization.

Workers at Bezeq, the state-owned telephone company, went back to repairing damaged phone lines after agreeing with management over a severance pay arrangement.

The agreement cleared the last obstacle to privatizing the phone company, a day after Communications Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer signed an order allowing competition in phone services here for the first time, ending Bezeq's monopoly.

Objecting to another privatization plan, workers for the state-owned fuel pipeline company cut off supplies to the whole country, except the military, for a day. They agreed to go back to work Tuesday night after the government agreed to reexamine the plan, under which the company would be split and half would be sold.

The sudden strike threatened to black out the country and ground civil aviation. Workers gave the government ten days to rethink its position.

Also pledging that workers would not be harmed, Transport Minister Amnon Lipkin-Shahak said a ban on flights by El Al on the Jewish Sabbath could be lifted before the company is sold to private investors.

Because of the 1983 ban, El Al planes are grounded from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. The ban has cut into the company's profits, and airline officials say it has made the company less attractive to foreign investors.

Lifting the ban wold require a Cabinet decision, said Transport Ministry spokesman Avner Ovadia.

Lipkin-Shahak said he is studying the matter. At a news conference, he said, ``There is a possibility that El Al will fly on the Sabbath even before it is privatized.'' In the past, El Al workers have gone on strike whenever privatization was on the agenda, charging that jobs and benefits would be lost.

Copyright 2000 Associated Press

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-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), September 05, 2000.