Two years ago, Alon Hassan, the union chief at Israel's Ashdod port, wanted to invite work colleagues to his daughter's bat mitzvah. When he and his co-workers walked off the docks during a weekday, they nearly paralyzed one of the country's largest trade gateways, enraging importers whose cargo was left stranded offshore. Israel's high-tech companies have earned a global reputation for their business acumen. Yet when it comes to raw economic power, it's hard to beat the unionized port workers calling the shots at the country's domi- nant ports in Haifa and Ashdod. These state-owned facilities process about 90 percent of the nation's exports and imports-and their inefficiency is costing businesses, according to the Manufacturers Association of Israel.
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