History books don't offer any clues as to whether Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels ever shared a latte or cappuccino. But it stands to reason that the authors of The Communist Manifesto would've been tremendously proud of Alon-Lee Green, a shift manager at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf café on Tel Aviv's Rehov Ibn Gvirol, whose battle for social justice has planted the seeds of a revolution in the Israeli workplace. After all, it was Green, a 20-year-old member of the Israeli Communist Party, who decided enough was enough, and that his fellow café workers needed to unite in a struggle that has resulted in an incredible victory over an international conglomerate and a sea change in conditions for Green, his Coffee Bean chain colleagues, and potentially thousands across the country.
Alon-Lee Green. Marx and Engles would have been proud.
Photo: Jonathan Bloom
Increasingly, they are taking Green's lead in fighting for better conditions at low-paying jobs, with the aid of the Histadrut, potentially changing the face of employee-worker relations. From airline stewardesses to security guards, they've been inspired by Green, who never doubted it could be done.
Green's battle against the chain's alleged exploitation of himself and his fellow workers included clandestine meetings, threats of dismissal, sidewalk confrontations with management and dreary demonstrations in the rain. But when he joined the Communist Party youth group at 16, "they taught us to stick up for your rights, to know what your rights are," and he never wavered.
Once almost everyone here belonged to a union, and May Day parades were an occasion for Histadrut leaders to flex their muscles. Those days ended a while ago, however. According to National Labor Court President Stephen Adler, "Union density in the Western world has on the whole been decreasing. In Israel, about 30 percent of the workforce is organized, compared to about 75% 40 years ago. This is part of a worldwide phenomenon but also was accelerated by the National Health Law, which allowed workers to obtain health services without being members of the Histadrut."
Adler also explained that "since the mid-'80s, there has been a blossoming of new industries, especially hi-tech, most of which are not organized. In Israel today, most of the organized workers are in the public sector, and the union power concentrated in certain parts of the public sector, such as the ports and airports." In the private sector, organized labor is the exception rather than the norm.
When the lanky, fast-talking Green, who definitely remembers "having a sense of social justice as a kid," left high school in August 2006 at 18 and went looking for a job, he headed into the lion's den of the non-unionized private sector: the highly-exploited, low-paying world of the café trade. The manager of the Ibn Gvirol branch of Coffee Bean offered NIS 20 an hour, a share of the tips, money back for transportation, etc. Green started as a barman.
Angel's Bakery staff has never been on strike against the owners. (Illustrative)
Photo: Ariel Jerozolimski
Within a month he was promoted to shift manager, but quickly noticed "there were a few things that weren't quite right."
"The reason I'd been advanced so quickly was because there was a lack of shift managers," he recalled recently after work. Suddenly he was doing overtime and not getting paid for it, and he noticed staff members who lived in Ramat Aviv had to pay their own way home late at night, costing them a third of their nightly wages.
What upset him even more was that he and his fellow workers were not getting their gratuities. "Metaphorically, that was money that I had already earned, because the customer had given it to me, but they [the owners[ were taking it for themselves... it was right in front of me on the table. It made me very angry."
The real tipping point came on New Year's Eve, however. No one else wanted to work, but Green and four others volunteered to do so. "We had a huge amount of tips that night because it was crazy. We finished our shift and we talked about how we wouldn't see an agora of it. We could've doubled our income for the shift, but we weren't going to get it. I quickly said: 'This just isn't right,' and we decided that we needed to form a union."
Not everyone was keen at first, but Green used his Communist Party connections to approach the Histadrut about organizing. They advised him he needed to sign up a third of the workers. "I told them there were 300-350 workers in the chain, how could I get them all to join?" Green recalled. "He said: You'll have to convince them."
DESPITE HIS political zeal, even Green was momentarily stumped. "At first I was very wary of the whole thing - I had no idea how I could get a third of the signatures. I didn't even know if I could get all the people at my own branch to sign; I should get a third of the workers at 14 branches to sign? I had no idea what to do."
He turned to former MK Tamar Gozansky for help, who advised using e-mail explaining to the workers how they were being ripped off. Meanwhile he told colleagues he could trust, like Zoe Rose, who would become one of his two most trusted lieutenants, what he was up to.
"It seemed like the exactly right path to take to change things in this whole sector. Because thousands of waiters and waitresses in Israel are shockingly exploited," says Rose.
"I didn't know if management would find out," says Green of those scary first days. The interested workers then held what added up to their own version of the Continental Congress, meeting at one woman's home to draw up a document to present to management. "Later it even became a legal document, which made us proud," he says. "We wrote: 'The undersigned declare our coming together as a union aimed at representing the workers before management.'"
They outlined their requests, focusing on what they were entitled to by law, like the tips, overtime, taxis at night, chairs at the bar, etc. Meanwhile the more serious among them joined the Histadrut, which agreed to lend its assistance.
"We made a strategic decision to make this a priority, and in the past year we have been making a major effort in this regard, particularly anyplace which contacts us and says they want to be organized, and Coffee Bean is a perfect example," says Shay Teken, head of the Professional Union Division's Legal Department, which came to Green's assistance. "Any struggle that leads to the creation of a union and which people see and hear about, and which ends successfully, leads to other workers considering such a move."
