Sources inform ''Globes'' that Israel Railways employees have agreed to ten years of industrial quiet as part of a comprehensive safety plan reached between the Railways' management and workers committee.
The railways safety plan aims to institute real changes in Israel Railways. All train safety and operating professions will be subject to Ministry of Transport licensing tests. The Railways Operations Supervision Division, founded four years, but never began operating due to opposition by the workers committee, will begin working immediately, after management agreed to add positions to the unit.
For the first time, GPS locators will be installed in all trains to monitor a train's position and speed. Cameras will be installed in locomotives to monitor both the travel and train drivers - but only from the back. Any train driver or other skilled employee who fails the licensing exams will be removed from his post, but he will keep his salary for five years.
Israel Railways employees will not receive at this time any pay hike, but a source in management told "Globes" that separate negotiations on a new salary agreement would begin soon, and that the "payment will come".
The agreement does not promise the cancellation of the government's plan to privatize railway maintenance to Canada's Bombardier Inc. (TSX: BBD), but the privatization is nonetheless unlikely to go ahead now. Histadrut chairman Ofer Eini has said that he supports the railways safety plan, but opposes privatization. Now that Israel Railways employees have agreed to the safety plan, management and the Ministry of Finance will find it difficult to justify privatizing railway maintenance, which would be perceived as privatization for the sake of privatization.
As a result of the agreement, Ministry of Transport Israel Katz will not shut down Israel Railways on August 17, as he threatened to do if there was no safety plan in place by then.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on August 4, 2011
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2011