The Israeli doctors’ and social workers’ campaigns of 2011 had many characteristics in common, but very different results. This article asserts that the differences stem from the different modes of privatization in the two sectors which reflect the importance of each sector in the neoliberal capital accumulation regime, which in turn affects the outcome of the workers’ struggles. While neoliberalism may undermine organized labour in general, it has uneven effects, benefiting some workers and undermining others. Thus we should pay attention to how privatization is implemented in different public sectors within the same country to better understand ‘actually existing neoliberalism’.