Histadrut (General Federation of Labor in Israel) chairman Avi Nissenkorn has declared a work dispute in the entire public employees sector because the differences between Postal Authority Company employees and management have not been resolved. Declaration of a work dispute allows unions to strike after 14 days.
Nissenkorn said, "We agreed to layoffs of over 1,000 postal authority employees in Israel. We agreed on a range of measures to improve services. Do you know what the dispute is about now? They want to dump 1,000 employees so they can hire 1,000 contract workers the next day. If we let this happen we would be backing the expansion of poverty and social gaps."
The Labor Court is due to hold a hearing tomorrow on the Postal Authority crisis, which will bring together government representatives, post office employees and probably the Histadrut. The State is expected to request a 45-day extension to continue talks with employees.
The main bone of contention between postal authority employees and management is over the number of layoffs. The sides have already agreed that hundreds of employees will take early retirement but in recent days company management and Ministry of Finance officials have demanded 1,500 more layoffs. Workers yesterday began sanctions and struck mobile post offices in rural areas except near Gaza. Today post offices in Tel Aviv are closed and on Wednesday post offices will be closed in Jerusalem.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on September 2, 2014
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