Summary
Three-day strike and two-day occupation of the Haifa railway workshops in February 1944, sparked by an industrial accident on February 2, in which all 1,400 workers (some 200 of them Jews) downed tools; it ended with only a minor retirement-fund concession and a promise of a Labor Department examination, but left the workers with a stronger sense of their own power and of Arab-Jewish unity (Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, lines 3511-3519).
Details
- Discontent at the workshops had been building: a government decision to reduce the COLA produced widespread resentment, and the Haifa branch committee of the IU had approached the AURW leadership to discuss joint action, the Arab unionists ambivalent about cooperation until an accident supplied the spark (Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, line 3511).
- On Wednesday, February 2, 1944, an Arab worker was seriously injured; there was no physician stationed at the workshops and the ambulance was under repair, a physician fetched from the nearby Vulcan factory could not suture the head wound for lack of supplies, and within a quarter of an hour all 1,400 workers — some 200 of them Jews — had downed tools, soon joined by another 170 men in the locomotive running sheds. A strike committee of three Arabs and two Jews presented demands including preservation of the COLA, an increase in the base wage, compensation for workplace accidents, retirement benefits for all workers and a permanently stationed physician (Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, line 3513).
- General Manager Kirby refused to negotiate until the workers returned; the workers occupied the workshops, spending the night around campfires. When the PAWS sent in food the Arab workers shared it with their Jewish comrades, and when the Haifa Workers’ Council belatedly sent supplies the Jewish workers also shared them; the Histadrut leadership in Haifa, especially Abba Hushi, opposed the strike and wanted it ended quickly, as did IU secretary Yehezkel Abramov, who feared it would strengthen the AURW and the PAWS (Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, line 3515).
- Under pressure from Abramov and from PAWS secretary Sami Taha, who was not interested in a long, militant and politically risky strike at a government enterprise in wartime, the union leaders ended the strike: after three days on strike and two days occupying the workshops the workers went home, having won only a minor concession over the retirement fund and a promise that the Labor Department would examine their grievances (Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, line 3517).
- Despite winning nothing substantial, the workers emerged with a stronger sense of their own power and of the value of Arab-Jewish unity; brief strikes followed in 1945, including a March protest strike at the Haifa workshops (Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, line 3519).
Related pages
Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, Palestine Railways, Labor Department, Palestine Arab Workers Society, Histadrut, Sami Taha, Abba Hushi, Haifa