Foreign Ministry workers hammer PM for ‘strike-breaking’

Foreign Ministry employees lambasted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Monday over his scheduled visit to Poland later this month, saying his plans amounted to an attempt to “break” an ongoing strike aimed at improving diplomats’ working conditions.

In an unusually harsh statement, the ministry’s workers’ union accused Netanyahu of recruiting army staff and other security personnel to circumvent having to use the services of foreign service professionals.

“The prime minister is trampling on the Foreign Ministry employees,” the workers’ union said in a statement. “It seems the prime minister prefers to threaten us with force and to turn the army into a tool against civilians instead of engaging in fact-based negotiating that will resolve the conflict.”

The Prime Minister’s Office did not respond to a request for comment.

A bitter labor dispute between Israeli diplomats and the Finance Ministry has been waging for months, and since April the workers’ union has been implementing sanctions aimed at disrupting Israeli officials’ visits abroad. For trips considered of major importance, such as Netanyahu’s May visit to China, the diplomats made exceptions, but this week they announced they would not help organize the prime minister’s planned two-day stopover in Poland, scheduled for next week.

“Staff at the Israeli embassy in Warsaw received directives from the leadership of the Foreign Ministry’s workers’ union to cease all activity related to the preparation or participation of the prime minister’s approaching visit,” Israeli Ambassador Tzvi Rav-Ner wrote in a letter to Polish Undersecretary of State Jerzy Pomianowski. Rav-Ner further asked Warsaw to see if it is possible to postpone “this very important meeting” until after the labor dispute has been solved.

On June 12, Netanyahu, who is acting foreign minister, Deputy Foreign Minister Ze’ev Elkin and five cabinet ministers are planning to head to Warsaw for consultations with their Polish counterparts. The next day, the Israeli delegation will fly to Krakow to take part in the reopening of an exhibition in the so-called Block 27 of the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum.

The Foreign Ministry’s workers’ union accused Netanyahu of seeking to “break the sanctions of the Foreign Ministry employees by replacing them with IDF and Shin Bet personnel.” According to the diplomats, the Prime Minister’s Office has recruited security officials and other professionals outside the foreign service to assist in the “technical coordination” such a visit requires.

“This is improper, unacceptable conduct,” the foreign ministry workers declared in a statement, calling on Netanyahu to participate in negotiations that could end the labor dispute.

Furthermore, the union charged, any state visit without the Foreign Ministry’s professional input is a pointless waste of taxpayer money. “It cannot be that the prime minister travels abroad with a huge entourage that costs a fortune for a visit that will be politically meaningless,” a senior ministry official said.

The workers’ union declared a labor dispute back in February and drastically intensified sanctions in April by asking staff to stop sending emails and diplomatic cables along with additional measures to disrupt the proper functioning of the country’s foreign policy apparatus. Several ministers and other top officials have already been forced to cancel travel plans because ministry staff refused to issue them diplomatic passports.

The diplomats are fighting for more pay and better working conditions, and against the fact that in the current government some of the Foreign Ministry’s key roles have been handed to other government institutions.

“The situation is such that one in three young diplomats in the ministry quits because they can’t make ends meet,” the head of the workers’ union, Yair Frommer, told The Times of Israel, describing what he says is the primary motivation for the potential strike.

Another reason relates to the makeup of the new government. There is no foreign minister currently, with Netanyahu acting as minister and holding the post for the possible return of former foreign minister Avigdor Liberman if he beats fraud and breach of trust charges. (Liberman’s trial is currently ongoing.) Justice Minister Tzipi Livni was tasked with managing peace negotiations with the Palestinians, a natural Foreign Ministry preserve. And a new International Relations Ministry was created, headed by Yuval Steinitz. In the eyes of the diplomats, all these changes deeply undermine the Foreign Ministry’s work.

Besides curtailing professional correspondence, current labor sanctions also include the halting of processing political appointments to Israel’s missions abroad, the suspension of a professional dress code and a full boycott of Steinitz’s International Relations Ministry.

The measures currently in place have not made major headlines in Israel because their effects are not visible outside the ministry, and foreign visits have been going on more or less as usual. However, they are severely affecting the work done at the ministry. Importantly, the fact that diplomats aren’t supposed to engage in any professional written correspondence significantly hampers the management of the country’s international relations.

According to the directives of the workers’ union, officials should also not send work-related emails, but one ministry official stationed in Jerusalem said that in preparation for foreign visits, the staff is forced to write emails. Besides refusing to issue diplomatic passports to people who do not work for the Foreign Ministry, employees have also halted providing services to new political appointees within Israel’s diplomatic service. The workers’ union also instructed ministry employees to disregard the usual dress code and come to work in jeans and T-shirts.