Summary
The non-official representative bodies created by leftist minority activists in Israeli factories in 1960-1965 to compete with the formally Mapai-controlled workers’ councils; their revolt is the working-class resistance mo(ve)ment of Grinberg’s Chapter 4 (Moments of Resistance, PDF p.132-133).
Details
- Under full employment, directly elected plant-level councils operated independently of the Histadrut; councils were radicalized by their more radical minorities regardless of which party held the majority, and leftist activists created the action committees to compete with councils still formally controlled by Mapai (PDF p.132).
- The committees organized solidarity with striking workers, protests and general strikes, supported by Mapam and Ahdut Ha’avoda activists and by the Communist Party and Herut; even professional unions used the deterring name “action committee” for their strike headquarters (PDF p.133).
- They were the most direct manifestation of worker resistance to the Histadrut’s policies of dependency rather than representation and its quasi-state structure, and the nemesis of Mapai leaders in government and Histadrut (PDF p.133).
- The revolt lasted five years and secured significant wage and unionization gains, but most leaders were co-opted by the parties; Mapai’s triple counter-mo(ve)ment — the 1965 Alignment, the 1966-67 recession, and the post-1967 Dual Regime — closed political space to their autonomous representation (PDF p.149-150).
Related pages
Moments of Resistance, Histadrut, Mapai, Movements of Resistance, Dual Regime