Israeli Embassy in Kazakhstan on strike

The Israel Embassy in Kazakhstan has suspended its work from March 5, 2014 because of the strike that resulted from a lengthly labor dispute with the Israeli Ministry of Finance, Tengrinews reports citing the official website of the Embassy. According to the message, the employees of the Israeli Foreign Ministry declared the strike to make their demands heard. Among them are a long-overdue adjustment of the salary to the rise in the cost of living, an end to a discriminatory tax policy, consideration of the dear price paid by "trailing" spouses and children in terms of loss of income, career and pension, and a decent compensation for extra hours. "The work of the Israeli Embassy in Kazakhstan was suspended starting from March 5, 2014 in accordance with the strike instructions of the labour union. The strike is part of an extended list of organisational measures that involves employees of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and all the Israeli Embassies," the message says. The Embassy in Kazakhstan halted all its operations related issuance of visits and temporarily suspended scheduling of official visits of Israeli delegations to Kazakhstan. The Embassy stopped providing consular services, filling out visas and other documents required for Kazakhstan citizens to visit Israel. The only exceptions are life-saving health care deliveries, education in Israel, cultural events and interviews to the media. "It is unclear when the strike will be over," the Embassy says.