Despite the Tel Aviv Labor Court order to El Al Israel Airlines Ltd. (TASE: ELAL) pilots to stop canceling flights as part of their dispute over pay for pilots aged between 65 and 67 passengers continue to suffer. This evening El Al announced that its flights to Hong Kong and Beijing had been canceled.
Earlier today, Tel Aviv Labor Court judges said that both the pilots and management had chosen to behave over-aggressively with a high degree of indifference to the major damage caused to the public. The pilots were reprimanded for cynically using absence from work to achieve their collective aims.
Judge Ofira Dagan-Tuchmacher asked El Al's management for more data. At her request, El Al will submit a detailed table, supported by a statement about the canceled flights by February 9, listing the calls made to pilots El Al says refused to conduct flights, leading to cancelation of those flights. Another hearing has been scheduled for February 22.
As in previous hearings, the differences between the two sides stood out in both objectives and versions of the facts. While El Al's lawyers have proposed a series of discussions on the disputed issue of the employment terms for pilots reaching age 65, the lawyer for the pilots' committee responded, "The company wants to negotiate with a drawn pistol, and said the company was "canceling flights on its own initiative."
El Al pilots' committee representative Nir Zuk also said that even if the Labor Tribunal orders the pilots to halt the disruptions, he will not fly if he does not feel fit. "I can't ask people to fly. We hoped that the Labor Tribunal would make a ruling that would help us make progress. The argument begins before the money. Management is telling people, 'You're not pilots.' I don't think that the Labor Tribunal should issue an order, because if I have to fly 199 passengers tonight, and I feel unfit, I won't fly. We're constantly negotiating. If the salary doesn't change and remains the way management has set it, nothing is going to change." Another pilot present at the hearing added, "The law forbids pilots to fly under mental stress."
El Al's lawyer summed up by saying, "The other side should go back to regular work instead of dissembling. All of a sudden we hear that if the salary is paid, the pilots will be motivated, so organizational control exists. Right now, there are flights with no one to fly them. A flight postponed yesterday is scheduled to leave at noon. All of this behavior emerged all at once as a result of and in response to this thing, and that is no accident. We are therefore asking that the orders we requested be issued, and urgently."
Nissenkorn: El Al management decided to break to rules
The Labor Tribunal hearing was held after negotiations between El Al's management and the pilots reached a deadlock, despite mediation by Histadrut (General Federation of Labor in Israel) chairman Avi Nissenkorn.
Nissenkorn told Galei Tzahal (Army Radio), "El Al's management has decided to break the rules, and that's a pity and a big mistake. It's very unwise behavior. We're trying to deal with the crisis, and management decides to lower the salary of pilots aged 65 and up. You don't take a unilateral measure during a crisis and tell the workers, 'From now on, you have no pension after age 65'."
Galei Tzahal: Do you support canceling flights during negotiations?
Nissenkorn: "It's not clear to me. I'm worried about El Al, its pilots, and its workers. But you don't cut salary during negotiations. That's a bad mistake. You have to create a solution, and we're trying to do that. Management has created a crisis."
Five El Al flights were canceled yesterday: to London (round trip), Warsaw (round trip), and a night flight that was scheduled to leave for Madrid. Saturday night flights to New York Boston, and Moscow were canceled, and another flight to New York was canceled on Thursday.
The dispute between El Al and its pilots concerns the terms for pilots reaching age 65, after which aviation regulations do not allow them to fly. These pilots, however, of whom there are 40 at any given time, still have two years to go before they reach the official pension age. The options are therefore to put the pilots to work in other jobs in the company, in training, for example, and voluntary retirement. This is where the dispute lies: terms for their employment or retirement that will be satisfactory to both sides. In other words, the company wants to pay as little as possible, and the pilots want to receive as much as possible.
In the same interview, asked about the report in "Globes" that MK Shelly Yachimovich is running against him for the chairpersonship of the Histadrut, Nissenkorn answered, "I'm glad about the announcement. I'm in favor of a contest."
Army Radio: She does not think so.
"Yachimovich's message is clear: they're trying to slander the Histadrut. There are facts."
Published by Globes [online], Israel Business News - www.globes-online.com - on February 6, 2017
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