The management of Ashdod Port yesterday petitioned the Regional Labor Tribunal for temporary remedies against the strike by operations managers and workers that began yesterday at the company. Labor Tribunal President Judge Yohanan Cohen ruled that a hearing on the matter would be held tomorrow morning.
Ashdod Port's management said that all maintenance work on the port had been halted, and ships had not been loaded or unloaded. Management informed the port's customers of the disruptions in its activity.
Transportation Workers Union chairperson Avi Edri said that the dispute had been caused by "the company's refusal to assign managers as a punitive measure for not attending morning briefings." The reason for the managers' absence from the briefings is "detracting from their pay," because the workers in the briefing do not receive the same premiums and bonuses as for their regular work on the quay.
The briefings are routine meetings lasting for several hours attended by workers from other sections, including administration workers.
The relatively small managers committee covers 50 workers, but is very powerful. 12 work managers who were not assigned to work due to their absence from the briefing ordered all 700 operations workers to stop working, thereby putting 750 port workers on strike and leaving ships waiting at the piers.
The unofficial reason for the dispute is the operations workers' anxiety about the hiring of new workers. According to Edri, the port's management plans to hire 60 new workers, a measure that will "detract from the pay of the existing workers and make workers redundant when the new port opens." The operations workers also recently asked senior Histadrut (General Federation of Labor in Israel) figures to delay the company's hiring of new workers.
Published by Globes [online], Israel Business News - www.globes-online.com - on December 14, 2017
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