Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) (TASE: ELEC.B22) will fire 610 non-tenured employees at its projects division by the end of the year. The division has 1,000 employees, most of whom work on large projects, such as the construction of power stations, and were hired for a limited period, originally set at ten years. This period was halved in 2005.
In the past few years, IEC's projects division mainly worked on projects related to the utility's emergency plan, which included the construction of seven natural gas power stations. Work on the emergency plan is drawing to a close, and because no new projects have been approved for the IEC to carry out, the projects division's work will be sharply curtailed in 2015.
Although IEC wants to keep some of the division's employees, this requires an agreement with the Histadrut (General Federation of Labor in Israel), which demands that the employees are given tenure.
IEC said in response, "The projects division hires and releases employees on the basis of the work plans the division is tasked with. Every employee knows in advance that the job is temporary for the purpose of carrying out the engineering work, and that when the project is completed, his employment by company is terminated as planned. The number of projects will fall at the end of 2015, and regrettably the work of most of the employees is planned to end by the completion of the projects."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on April 13, 2014
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