The Beersheva District Labor Court today ordered employees of Israel Chemicals Ltd. (TASE: ICL) unit Dead Sea Works to go back to work, and end the labor sanctions launched yesterday. The court accepted Israel Chemicals management's argument that the industrial action was really about bonuses, not the negotiations between the government and Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan Inc. (NYSE; TSX: POT) over its wish to acquire the company. The court ordered the government to brief it, after Passover, on the talks over a possible sale of Israel Chemicals.
In a separate development, Israel Chemicals unit IC Industrial Products (bromine) workers committee chairman Avner Ben-Senior today came out against his colleagues at Dead Sea Works. "The labor sanctions taken by Dead Sea Works are over internal disputes at the unit between the workers committee and management over the employees' bonus, and have nothing whatsoever to do with the workers committees' just struggle over the sale of Israel Chemicals to Potash Corp.," he said in a letter to employees.
IC Industrial Products, based at Ramat Hovav in the Negev has 1,000 employees. Ben-Senior added, "There is no connection between the labor sanctions by Dead Sea Works' employees and the struggle by Israel Chemicals' workers committee against the sale of the company to Potash Corp., and any attempt to link the events harms our just struggle and harms the workers committees' power and unity.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on March 19, 2013
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