Israel Discount Bank (TASE: DSCT) employees will launch labor sanctions next week. The bank’s main branches in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa will be closed on Sunday to protest the lack of progress in negotiations on a wage contract and the non-payment of bonuses to employees.
The sanctions come after a period of industrial quiet promised by the employees at the order to Labor Court expired. The Labor Court earlier ordered industrial quiet at Discount Bank until the end of December, which is why sanctions will begin next week, in January.
Discount Bank’s employees will hold a general meeting next week, which will effectively shut down the bank. Additional sanctions to be undertaken include closing bank branches at noon on Friday, suspending work on the bank’s Ofek computerization project, and calling off all meeting between the workers committee and management.
Discount Bank workers committee chairman Riki Bachar said, “The management’s behavior concerning workers’ compensation is scandalous. Whereas management was quick to distribute to itself bonuses amounting to three and half salaries, it claimeds that employees’ bonuses were included in the privatization grant. The workers granted management a period of industrial quiet, which management failed to use to hold serious negotiations. Instead, it procrastinated.”
Discount Bank’s management said in response that it would take all measures necessary to minimize disruptions for customers. “We regret that the workers committee has chosen to declare labor sanctions even before exhausting negotiations.”
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on December 29, 2005