Workers at Ashdod Port began an "Italian strike" yesterday in protest at the ports reform taking shape, sources inform "Globes". Internal figures on shift output indicate that loading and unloading of ships were at about half target rates.
"The workers are anxious about their livelihoods. Unless they talk to us on operating the two ports, the situation will only deteriorate," a source at Ashdod Port told "Globes" today. "I fear that the workers will take the law into their hands and we will lose control because they are fed up that they have been toyed with for four years. They don’t want to end up like the Broadcasting Authority."
According to the source, the workers started to work "according to the safety rules", and thereby deliberately caused a fall in the port's output. "For example, a 'Stop' sign means 'stop'. You can't tell the workers to work faster," he explained. Nevertheless, the source, who is close to the Ashdod Port management, said that "if anyone takes industrial action in connection with the reform, they are in contempt of the National Labor Court." In hearings over the past three years, the court has refused to allow labor sanctions over the ports reform.
The background to the go-slow at Ashdod Port is growing fear of competition from the new ports to be constructed as part of the ports reform, which will not only be more modern, but will be privately-owned and much leaner as far as manpower is concerned. The committee of the mechanical equipment workers at Ashdod Port sent a letter to Ministry of Transport director general Keren Terner last week demanding that they should operate the new port due to open in three years' time.
The new ports are supposed to be manned by workers to be recruited by the companies that won the tender to operate them. The Ashdod terminal will be operated by Dutch company Terminal Investment Limited (TIL), owned by shipping line Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC).
The new terminals will be semi-automated, as is the norm nowadays around the world, and will employ far fewer workers than the existing ports. Negotiations on streamlining those ports have been going on in desultory fashion for five years.
Ashdod Port management stated in response: "Work at the port continues as normal and at full output. During the B shift yesterday there was a fall in output and the management is looking into the causes of it. The port management insists on industrial quiet in accordance with the labor agreements and will not allow disruption to routine, regular work."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on April 30, 2018
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