Labor leaders here and elsewhere like to clothe their pursuit of their own interests, and ostensibly their constituents', in noble rhetoric about "social justice" and "workers' rights."

According to Histadrut Chairman Amir Peretz, the issue at stake in the public-sector workers' strike is nothing less than the moral nature of Israeli society itself.

That's a theme worth exploring, particularly considering that, in the long run, the ultimate victims of the Histadrut's "defense" of "workers' rights" will almost certainly be ordinary working people.

The Histadrut did not initiate the Civil Service strike simply because it considers the state of wages in the public sector to be particularly outrageous. Rather, it intends to make any wage rise that the civil servants attain a benchmark for the rest of the economy. If it is successful, labor costs will in turn rise throughout the economy, as will employers' tax bills and state-guaranteed pension obligations. In other words, the Histadrut aims to make the labor markets more rigid, and labor itself more expensive.

To understand the likely consequences of this policy, we should take a look at Europe, where unemployment has been rising more or less steadily since the 1970s, climbing in worse times, dropping a little in better times, but never really recovering lost ground.

Unemployment rates today in Germany, France, and Italy are stuck in the 11-12% range, about double what they were in 1980, and in Spain it is 18%. Joblessness among young people is usually about twice that of the general population. Over half the unemployed are the long-term jobless, many of whom haven't worked in years and are unlikely ever to work again.

In 1994 the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development published The OECD Jobs Study, Parts I and II, an authoritative report on the causes of Europe's labor malaise.

Its findings were unequivocal: The causes of unemployment are rigid labor markets and artificially high wages and benefits, not corporate greed, inadequate government spending or foreign competition.

Bad labor policies have created large and growing populations of the permanently excluded, who can't get work and for whom the liberal democratic state's promise of opportunity and self-establishment is little more than a bad joke. Yes, the state won't let them starve, but it can no longer promise them a chance to get ahead.

Europe's demographic growth is slow. The overall size of the workforce creeps up annually by hardly a few tenths of a percentage point. That's why it took 15 to 20 years for unemployment in most of Europe's major economies to double from roughly 6% to some 12%.

In Israel, circumstances are different. Our population grows faster, and our labor force expands by 2-3% a year. Given that, the performance of our labor market this decade has been magnificent.

Between 1990 and 1996 some 600,000 jobs were created (including unreported foreigners' jobs), more than in France or Italy during the same period. Even in the depths of the recession, the stock of jobs has remained steady, actually growing a bit.

Still, this record is fragile. Had our labor market performed like an average European country's, it would take only a few years for our labor crisis to rival Germany's or even Spain's. Now contemplate the social consequences of that in our tense, divided country.

Unemployment of 12 or 18% is not likely to be an immediate consequence of this particular public sector strike. It will become very likely, however, if the Histadrut's current behavior turns into a pattern.

Since the Histadrut's raison d'etre is to make labor markets artificially more expensive and more rigid, its custodianship of the powers granted to it by law is properly a matter of public concern.

Perhaps there ought to be some sort of public check on the Histadrut's capacity to use its clout for whatever purposes it chooses, short-term and destructive, or long- term and constructive. Requiring a mandatory strike ballot before any strike or labor sanction takes place is one useful proposition that comes to mind. That way, at least, we could be sure that the workers whose interests the Histadrut claims to represent really think the Histadrut is acting in their interest.