Political report of the Executive of the Jewish Agency submitted to the ... Zionist Congress and the ... session of the Council of the Jewish Agency · 1937-08-01 · 8.1937 · p. Seite 55

55 labour into the porterage works controlled by the Government at the port of Haifa. In this, as in kindred matters, the Political Department worked in close cooperation with the institutions of the General Federation of Jewish Labour. After the claim to a share of this work had been conceded in principle, a further difficulty arose from the Government's refusal to adopt in this case a contract-group system instead of the daily wage system which was prevalent in the port. The Government would engage Jewish workers individually, employing them on the same conditions as Arab labour. The Jewish Agency had to explain that, as had been proved by experience, it was only by working as one collective unit that Jewish labour could succeed in earning a living wage in works to which it had not been previously accustomed, without increasing the cost to the consumer. The routine adopted by the Government, however, proved impervious to all argument and in April 1936 the request of the Jewish Agency was turned down. 74. The disturbances afforded an opportunity of reopening the question. In the month of August the port of Haifa came to the verge of being overtaken by the Arab strike. Under the pressure of mass intimidation, all the Arab lightermen and stevedores and some of the Arab porters actually stayed away from work in the Haifa harbour for a few days. But the Port did not come to a standstill. Jewish lightermen and stevedores, whose numbers were immediately brought up to adequate strength, were able to maintain the port service in a satisfactory manner, and Arab labour of peaceful disposition towards the Jews was mobilised by the General Federation of Jewish Labour to take the place of the porters who had joined the racial strike. The attempt to paralyse the Haifa port having thus failed, the hold of the agitators on the port labourers relaxed and they trooped back to work. The request was then urged with renewed force, both by the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem and by the local Jewish institutions in Haifa, for the introduction of a substantial number of Jewish workers into porterage works. This request again met with a negative reaction. It was argued on the part of the Government that as the Arab porters had gone back to work, there was no further need for Jewish labour, the introduction of which might act as a fresh irritant. In a letter written at the time to the Government the representative of the Jewish Agency asked : "Are the Jews to come to the con-