Our Daily Bread

July 9, 2007 - 7:30 AM by Stephanie

Israel’s carb-consuming population is up-in-arms over the latest “Bread Strike” affecting consumers nationwide.

The basics: Bakeries want the government to back a price increase on the government subsidized standard white and brown (i.e. rye) breads. They say it’s costing them more to produce the standards so they want to be able to charge more.

The government says no dice because they want to keep prices affordable for the people who subsist on those breads. Charge whatever you like for the boutique whole wheat and fancy roll varieties, they tell bread producers, but forget prices hikes for the basic varieties.

The bakery response was to strike & stop baking the basic varieties. And people are talking.

Life in Israel says “Let Them Eat Cake”….
Today there was no basic bread in the stores. Tomorrow, they are saying, unless a solution is quickly reachd, there will not be basic challahs in the store. There will be more expensive challahs, but not the basic ones….The Olmert government cannot even be relied on anymore to provide bread for its citizens. How can we rely on him to provide security?

Well, there is always cake.

OCCUPIED maintains that the core issue at hand is not bread prices but poverty…
The point of course is not the price of bread, but rather the continued cuts in social allowances, the refusal to hike up the minimum wage in any significant way and the lack of effort to control all those private manpower agencies, who are today the main employer of people employed in low wage jobs, such as cleaning, secretarial work and security guarding.

The problem is poverty. Poverty is NOT solved by adding 2.5 NIS to the social security payments. Poverty is not solved by enforcing low basic food prices.

Poverty is solved by a combination of higher minimum pay, better social security payments, enforcing labor laws in regard to employment conditions as a higher minimum wage, as well as advancing education and vocational training for all.

Ultimately, let’s hope a solution is reached so that the people who most need it can buy it. amen.

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