IBA considers lockout to counter radio strike threat

Technicians at the Israel Broadcasting Authority are expected to begin work sanctions on January 17 as part of their battle against the budget cuts being instituted at the state agency. Management is weighing various offensive and defensive measures to keep employers from taking control of the situation.

On Sunday, IBA Director General Mordechai Sklar will ask the IBA board for authority to call a lockout. If that happens, the IBA could suspend broadcasts at Channel 1 television as well as at its several radio stations.

Israel Radio fired the head of its technical department on Wednesday for refusing to cooperate with the budget cuts. Israel Radio director Aryeh Shaked said that Leonid Schrier had refused to prepare a new work plan for the engineers and technicians under him that conformed to the new budgetary requirements. Schrier's subordinates responded to the dismissal - the first to result from the IBA budget cuts - by announcing their refusal to replace him.

"We'll ask the board to call a lockout in the event that the workers implement harsh measures," Sklar said yesterday. "The option exists, and we'll decide in accordance with the workers' actions."

The lockout threat will increase the IBA's bargaining power vis-a-vis the workers, especially the union representing the technicians. In addition, if the technicians follow through on their strike threat, a lockout would enable the IBA to suspend wage payments to other workers at the facilities struck by the technicians. That would affect journalists and administrative employees.