Electric corp. warns of possible disruptions starting due to employee sanctions

The Israel Electric Corporation is warning consumers there may be electrical shortages starting today, the first day back at work after the Passover vacation. The company is asking consumers to cut back between the hours of 2 P.M. to 9 P.M. on their use of energy-guzzling appliances such as washing machines, ovens, driers and dishwashers.

The IEC says that due to employee sanctions, its generating capacity has been reduced to only 6,300 megawatts, which is exactly the level of demand forecast for this afternoon.

Amos Lasker, the IEC's CEO, says the union has taken over the generating plants and "in practice, the management of the entire electrical production system, in a thuggish act that is causing enormous damage to Israel's electricity industry, and is preventing the company from meeting demand and causing serious harm to customers."

He said the company plans on taking the union to court "urgently."

Lasker explained that staff cannot receive the data they need on production capacity or on electricity supply to customers. The union is blocking the completion of renovations and upgrades at a number of generating plants, which were scheduled to be completed by the start of spring. In addition, employees are not repairing a number of faults at power stations. One production unit at the Hagit plant is still out of service, as is another at the Haifa power station, both for scheduled improvements. But yesterday a second unit at Hagit failed, and two units at the Rabin power plant near Hadera are also out of service due to problems, while a number of other units are either not working or operating at less than full capacity.

The union said it would refrain from any damage to consumers, and called on management to put the Hadera station back into full operation. In addition, the workers asked the Manufacturers Association to intervene to prevent damage to thousands of businesses around the country.