Last update - 00:00 29/08/2007
Labor Party cancels collective wage agreement with employees
By Haim Bior, Haaretz Correspondent
The Labor Party informed the Histadrut Wednesday that it intends to annul the collective wage agreement with is workers.
Following the termination of the agreement, the party's employees will sign personal employment contracts and receive diminished salaries.
The alteration to the labor agreement is part of an extensive restructuring plan initiated by party chairman Ehud Barak with the aim of reducing the party's NIS 134 million debt by significantly reducing its operating costs.
According to Histadrut data, the Labor Part currently has 34 full-time employees in its service, 17 of them part of the collective wage agreement.
The law stipulates that an employer seeking to cancel a collective wage agreement with its employees must announce the move 60 days in advance. The agreement's annulment will therefore go into effect at the end of October.
Amir Sheftel, secretary of a Tel Aviv clerks' union, said the organization will "do all it can to fight the Labor Party's decision, and within that context will announce a labor dispute within the party, that will lead to a strike following a two week 'cooling off' period."
According to Sheftel, "the Labor Party's move also diminishes the Histadrut's power. It is a red line that must not be crossed."
"I am shocked by the move," said the supervisor of the Labor Party's Tel Aviv employees. "The party that defines itself as social-democratic and established the Histadrut is the one which is canceling the collective agreement and, by doing so, undermining one of its core principles."
He also criticized the fact that the Labor Party "took advantage of the fact that the Histadrut is not is session in order to cancel the collective agreement."