From: AriehNYC@Prodigy.net
Date: Fri Nov 09 2001 - 13:34:59 EST
Greetings:
The letter below concerns a situation confronting low-
paid workers at Tel Aviv University in Israel, which
is being mailed momentarily. Please read it through,
and if you would like to try to be of assistance,
download this message, open it up using your
wordprocessing software, and then edit it as you think
appropriate, and send it to the President of Tel Aviv
University.
It would be helpful if you could edit it to
personalize it - that is, express the sentiments in
the letter IN YOUR OWN WORDS rather than those in the
letter - even if just a bit in each paragraph.
Please also remove all of the CCs from your letter.
It would be good if your letter could be on either
personal or organizational stationery.
Please before you send your letter out, print two
extra copies, and sign the original and the copies -
send the original, keep a copy, and send a copy back
to us at the address at the bottom of this message.
Thank you for your assistance.
-- Arieh Lebowitz / JLC Communications Director
>> Avram B. Lyon
>> Executive Director
>> Jewish Labor Committee
>> 25 East 21st Street
>> New York, NY 10010 -- see below
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
November 8, 2001
Professor Itamar Rabinovich
President
Tel Aviv University
P.O. Box 39040
Tel Aviv 69 978
ISRAEL
Dear President Rabinovich:
It was with much consternation that we recently
learned that your maintenance staff are not able to
receive the benefits of other university employees
because Tel Aviv University secures their services by
outside contractors.
We are writing now to call on the university
administration to directly hire these low-paid
cleaners, gardeners and security guards, and
not “contract out” for their services, so that they
will be entitled to receive the social welfare
benefits, as well as other basic worker rights, that
all other wage-earners at your university receive.
The use of subcontractors to avoid the payment of a
decent wage and the provision of standard benefits of
workers is not unique to Tel Aviv University.
However, it runs counter to the spirit of contemporary
employment procedures in modern societies as well as
Jewish religious law.
We understand that the university has requested senior
members of your academic staff to provide the
university with a NIS 25 million loan - to be
collected directly from their pay - to help offset the
university's current deficit. It is to their credit
that they have made fair employment conditions for
these low-wage workers a condition for such a loan.
Treating all of your workers fairly and decently
should be part and parcel of the workings of the
administration of Tel Aviv University. The “good
name” of such a renowned institution should not be
sullied by the mistreatment of its lowest-paid workers.
We are quite concerned about this matter, and hope
that it can be resolved fairly and quickly. We
understand that your university and other institutions
of higher education in Israel are confronted with many
challenges. The resolution of this matter will, we
hope, be a step towards solving many of the labor-
management issues now before you.
Please keep us informed on this matter.
Sincerely,
Avram B. Lyon
Executive Director
/al
cc:
David Gad-Harf, Executive Director, Jewish Community
Council of Metropolitan Detroit; Gershom Gelman,
General Secretary, Tel Aviv-Yafo Labor Council; Rachel
Giora, Dept. of Linguistics, TAU; Michael Hirschfeld,
Executive Director, Jewish Community Relations
Committee of Los Angeles; Malcolm Hoenlein, Executive
Vice President, Conference of Presidents of Major
American Jewish Organizations; Dan Jacobson, Dept. of
Labor Studies, TAU; Jeremy Jones, Executive Council of
Australian Jewry; Douglas Kahn, Executive Director,
Jewish Community Relations Council of San Francisco,
The Peninsula, Marin, Sonoma, Alameda and Contra Costa
Counties; Nancy Kaufman, Executive Director, Jewish
Community Relations Council of Greater Boston; Frau
Knobloch, Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland; Martin
Krupnick, National President, Workmen’s Circle; Dov
Lautman, Chairman of the Executive Council, TAU;
Samuel Norich, General Manager, The Forward
Association; Amir Peretz, General Secretary,
Histadrut; Hannah Rosenthal, Executive Vice President,
Jewish Council for Public Affairs; Burt Siegel,
Executive Director, Jewish Community Relations Council
of Greater Philadelphia; Jack Silverstone, Executive
Vice President, Canadian Jewish Congress; Elan
Steinberg, Executive Director, World Jewish Congress;
Michael H. Steinhardt, Chairman of the Board of
Governors, TAU; Jay Tcath, Director, Jewish Community
Relations Council of the Jewish United Fund of
Metropolitan Chicago; Jo Wagerman, OBE, President,
Board of Deputies of British Jewry; Sam Witkin,
Executive Vice President, American Friends of TAU.
opeiu:153
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