Strike at Israeli ports

Strike at Israeli ports

The public sector strike against the privatization of three Israeli ports; Ashdod, Haifa and Eilat has caused a serious interruption of operations at the own coast of the country. The strike, that has been going on since early last week is a result of the walk-out of 2'500 employees. It is reported that Israeli government is working on a possibility of using Egyptian and Jordanian ports, in order to solve the congestion problem at the ports, both for exports and imports. The reports state that the port workers have so far allowed only loading export cargoes of agricultural products. The reason behind such action could either be the farmers' support for the port workers strike or the workers' understanding for the farmers, in order to avoid them suffer huge losses. In case Israel reaches an agreement with Egypt and Jordan, it will pay a fee of $200 per container of unit handled at each port. Such solution is estimated to cost around $200 million for the Israeli government. As an alternative solution to end the strike, the government is also studying the possibility of opening an unused private port in Haifa as according to reports, there are currently 40 ships anchored offshore.