Labor in Israel: Beyond Nationalism and Neoliberalism, by Jonathan Preminger. ILR Press, Ithaca, NY, 2018, 252 pp., ISBN: 978‐1‐5017‐1712‐3, $60.00, hardback.
| Date | 01 December 2018 |
| Published date | 01 December 2018 |
| Author | Ciaran Cross |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12440 |
884 British Journal of Industrial Relations
Labor in Israel: Beyond Nationalism and Neoliberalism, by Jonathan Preminger. ILR
Press, Ithaca, NY, 2018, 252 pp., ISBN: 978-1-5017-1712-3, $60.00, hardback.
Charting the tensions between the waning corporatism of the ‘old guard’ and a
new wave of worker activism, Jonathan Preminger’s accessible book contributes an
insightful examination of legitimacy and democracy in Israel’s labour movement.
Recounting the most significant shift in Israeli industrial relationsfor many decades, it
draws on interviews with participants of several significant labour disputes occurring
over the past ten years, when ‘organized labour appeared to wake up’ (p. 2). The rise
of competition to the hegemonic labour organization, the Histadrut — through the
establishment of the KoachLaovdim union, the NGO Kav Laoved, and the Workers’
Advice Centre — is convincingly located in the context of the Histadrut’s declining
relevance as a national institution, as well as the democraticlimitations of its internal
structures. These alternatives, Preminger proposes, presage both the breakdown of
Histadrut’s corporatism and the potential opening up of representative avenues to
workers long excludedfrom Israel’s labour institutions.
The book is structured around a theoretical framework of ‘three spheres of
union activity’: union democracy, the balance of power between labour and capital
and labour’s relationship to the state/political community. Preminger builds upon
an impressive array of local and international scholarship to which he introduces
engaging primary data on a number of key labour disputes among diverse groups of
workers (including cleaners, social workers, doctors, railway and telecommunications
workers), many of which have led to significant developments in the legal framework
of Israeli industrial relations. His proximity to the subject lends much authenticity,
and at times sound bites from the thick of industrial struggle quickly put paid to
theoretical nicety: neoliberal critique is all fine and good, but when the cleaners
enter the fray to strike over dismissals, ‘they were driven by a much more basic
understanding of what it means to be fired: “You screw me, I’ll screw you”’ (p.
42). Combining coherent analysis with this wide breadth of sources, the study
contains much of value and will prove a useful resource for scholars researching
issues of representation and pluralism in the labour movement, or seeking a
contemporary overview of organized labourin Israel. But it is, perhaps, only partially
successful.
For example, the principal question Preminger seeks to answer in the book is:
‘Following the decline of the Israeli (nationalist, Zionist) variant of the labour
movement, whatis the status of organized labour in Israel today and whatis its current
role in the representationof workers in the Israeli sociopolitical regime?’ (p.3). In these
terms, it is surprising that it contains only a few references to the Histadrut’s ‘main
rival’ — the ‘National Histadrut’, whichin 2007 represented around 300,000 members
(11 per cent of all unionized workers compared to the Histadrut’s 26 per cent) (p. 13).
This omission would be perhaps less damaging if explained (it is acknowledged in a
footnote), since the National Histadrut is the primary right-wing alternative to the
Histadrut. As such, it is dicult to ascertain whether the central assertion underlying
Preminger’s question holds true (is the ‘Israeli (nationalist, Zionist) variant of
the labour movement’ actually ‘indecline’?).
A later question perhaps better encapsulates the book’s main theme: ‘how is
organized labour maintaining its legitimacy as a political actor, if at all?’ (p. 29).
Preminger’s discussion clearly highlights the particularities of Israeli corporatism.
Established in 1920, the Histadrut was not conceived as a representative body for
C
2018 John Wiley& Sons Ltd.
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