BREAKING NEWS

Histadrut faction demands commission to investigate collapse

The Hadash faction of the Histadrut Labor Federation called for a commission of inquiry Monday after a construction collapse in Tel Aviv killed two and injured at least 18.
“This incident, though it’s wider in scale than any one construction incident in recent years, is not an exception,” said Suhil Diab, chairman of the Histadrut’s Hadash faction.
Diab said that accidents and hazards are commonplace, and called it “miraculous” that other such incidents were not as common.
“It was only a matter of time before a disaster of this magnitude would occur,” he said.
Poor regulation and lack of enforcement were to blame, he said. He also accused the government and construction companies of being lax in their safety, at least in part, because so many of Israel’s construction workers are Palestinian or foreign workers. Without a proper response, he said, a strike in the construction industry would be in order.
A strike in the construction industry could be a setback not only to construction companies and workers, but to the general population more broadly. Israel’s sky-high real estate prices have failed to moderate, in part, because new construction cannot keep up with demand.
A strike could exacerbate that trend.