Business in Brief

Careline-Perrigo fired 80 female shelf stockers last week - via text message sent to their cell phones. Other company employees - 12 salespeople and 10 office workers - received letters in the mail summoning them to pre-dismissal hearings this week. Two weeks after it purchased the cosmetics and toiletries company in November for NIS 194 million, Emilia Development sold off the Careline brands to Sano for NIS 85 million. Sano promised to retain most of the workers. Careline-Perrigo's labor union has been negotiating with Sano, and the parties even signed an understanding 10 days ago. Emilia said the text messages were sent out in order to spare the employees the emotional distress of hearing about the dismissals from another source first. Sano said that most Careline employees would remain with the company in the end. (Haim Bior)

Cabinet ministers can breathe more easily: The Ministerial Committee for Legislation voted yesterday to oppose a bill that would require the finance minister to set rules limiting the expenses of ministers traveling overseas. The bill was introduced in the wake of the State Comptroller's report on Defense Minister Ehud Barak's trip to the Paris Air Show last year. Barak paid NIS 20,000 per night for his hotel suite. The bill would also have imposed personal sanctions against ministers who exceeded their spending limits without prior approval from the cabinet. MK Nahman Shai (Kadima), one of the bill's sponsors, said the committee's decision proved that the fat cats were reluctant to give up their cream. Another bill thought to be headed for the coalition's circular file is Labor MK Daniel Ben Simon's proposal to require a three-year cooling off period for former prime ministers before they enter private business. (Zvi Zrahiya)

Are the dreams of an Israeli Disneyland over? The developers behid the grandiose Aquaria project in Eilat have cut way back on their plans for a 1,300 dunam (325-acre) amusement park and tourist attraction, and will now make do with a 400-dunam project. Three American businessmen are behind Aquaria: Joseph Bernstein, Albert DeVaul and Stanley Silverstein. Aquaria was to include an amusement park with a water theme, an 18-hole golf course, shops, restaurants, exhibition halls and theaters. The State Comptroller reported in 2008 that the planning and approval process for the project contained many serious failures and improprieties, including the exploitation of personal connections within the government. The original project called for the expropriation of a large swathe of land from Kibbutz Eilot, which went to court over the matter. The land was awarded without a tender, and for a very small annual fee. The new plan, for the scaled-down park, calls for integrating it within the city of Eilat. (Irit Rosenblum)