The Histadrut’s El Al coordinating committee set up to work out a reaction to the government’s decision to ban all Sabbath and Jewish holiday flights by the national airline, has decided to strike the entire Ben Gurion Airport this Saturday if El Al is not allowed to continue its flights.
The committee has yet to discuss other actions taken by workers committees of major enterprises, in sympathy with El Al workers who are protesting the enforced ban under the intense pressure of Aguda Israel, a partner in Premier Menachem Begin’s coalition government. El Al workers say the flight ban endangers their own salaries and the future of the airline.
Shlomo Azulai, chairman of the airport workers committee, said the government could not define “two types of Jews — those Jews employed by El Al who are not allowed to work on the Sabbath, and other Jews employed by the airport itself who would be forced to work on the Sabbath.
“If the El Al Jews don’t work next Saturday, by government order, we at the airport won’t work either,” Azulai said.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
