About

MAAN Workers Association unionizes men and women from diverse fields of employment with no discrimination on the basis of religion, nationality, or gender. MAAN accompanies groups of workers who want to unionize, helping them elect a workers’ committee and conduct disputes with management, including strikes when necessary. MAAN provides legal responses to employer harassment during and after unionization; it advises on bargaining demands and negotiations; it drafts collective agreements; it accompanies, assists and trains the workers’ committee after the signing of an agreement. All this is done democratically in close cooperation with the workers.

MAAN represents workers in factories, colleges, educational institutions and human rights organizations. MAAN is well-known in Israel’s labor relations, especially for unionizing workers in the privatized, subcontracted market that followed destruction of the public system.

MAAN is the sole workers’ organization in Israel that unionizes Palestinians employed in the West Bank settlements as well as those working in Israel.

MAAN

  • Advances the employment of Arab women in Israel; in this context, it organizes the annual “Bread and Roses” art sale, whose proceeds go to its project, “Women and Work.”
  • Protects workers and the unemployed in East Jerusalem, with an emphasis on promoting the entry of women to the labor force.
  • Fights gender discrimination, including the exclusion of women from leadership; supports the rights and dignity of women who face sexual harassment in the workplace.
  • Promotes legislation and policy change, including access to national insurance services for Palestinian and migrant workers; promotes workplace safety; enables access to health services for marginalized populations; improves employment arrangements for Palestinians.
  • Partners with other organizations that promote equality, protect the planet, and advance human rights, including women’s and LGBTQ rights.

MAAN was founded in the late 1990s by activists calling for a society based on social justice. It rejects the neoliberal system that destroyed the social safety net, deepened class polarization, and created a stratum of disenfranchised poor in Israel.

Grounded in the idea of universal justice, MAAN fights to end Israeli military rule over 5 million disenfranchised Palestinians. It seeks freedom, equality and dignity for both Palestinians and Israelis in a social system based on a green economy.

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