Haaretz workers threaten to skip publishing Thursday
As part of worsening labor feud, journalists say they’ll halt the presses unless management meets with them over planned layoffs
Stuart Winer is a breaking news editor at The Times of Israel.
Journalists at the Haaretz daily are threatening to take the dramatic step of withholding Thursday’s paper unless management meets with them over the worsening labor dispute roiling the newspaper.
Disgruntled employees have threatened to strike if their demands for a meeting with management over a planned 100 layoffs are not met, according to internal communications.
Workers were slated to meet Wednesday afternoon and decide whether to drop their workload for the rest of the day, halting work on Thursday’s edition.
The threatened strike comes on the heels of mass protests by workers at another embattled daily, Maariv, who have protested planned layoffs and budget shortfalls that will leave workers without some benefits. Maariv is in the process of being sold to new owners.
The strike action at Haaretz, which is expected to affect the paper’s Internet site as well, will last one day. Friday’s edition is planned to be printed as usual.
The paper, the smallest and most liberal of Israel’s four major Hebrew-language dailies, has contended with falling revenues for several years, forcing spending cutbacks as well as layoffs.
The Times of Israel Community.