The Israel Medical Association and the Ministry of Finance signed a new labor agreement behind closed doors and without ceremony, 24 hours after reaching the deal. Only photographers invited by the parties were allowed entry.
After a 159-day struggle, Medical Association chairman Dr. Leonid Eidelman is no mood to celebrate. He declined to hold a joint press conference with Ministry of Finance officials, despite the great achievements that he sees in the agreements.
Eidelman believes that he was deliberately worn down, and that a similar agreement could have been signed long ago.
Both sides described the agreement as historic, in that it gives doctors in the periphery and specialists in fields with shortages unprecedented pay hikes. But while the Ministry of Finance can mark off another battle ended, Eidelman's battle has just begun.
Eidelman faces residents who are still threatening to resign, doctors in central Israel who believe that they are paying the price for benefits for the periphery, and the administrators of large hospitals who are angry that he conceded their demand to bring private medicine back to government hospitals. Eidelman is afraid of being remembered not as the man who reached unprecedented achievements, but as the Medical Association's first chairman to agree to time clocks and requiring specialists to carry out duty shifts.
Shortly before the scheduled signing, there was a breakdown between the parties. "This cannot be," shouted Budget Director Ilan Levin. Mediator Dr. Yitzhak Peterburg was called back to the meeting room. Privately, he said that he did not understand why the parties rushed to announcing the closing yesterday, and then again procrastinated on the small print.
For example, yesterday, the doctors realized that the grants intended for doctors who agreed to move to the periphery were defined in the agreement as a standing loan, which is liable to a higher tax rate than a grant. The Ministry of Finance agreed to change the wording to "grant", but numerous other legal mines had to be defused along the way.
The parties' conduct largely reflects the lack of trust between them since the start of the doctors' struggle, which continued right up to the last minute. Moments before the signing, Eidelman left the meeting room, took off his shoes, and went to sleep on one of the hotel's sofas. In a moment of comic relief, Deputy Minister of Finance Yitzhak Cohen, who attacked Eidelman incessantly during the negotiations, turned up and drew the curtain. Cohen looked very pleased with himself, while Eidelman just looked tired.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on August 25, 2011
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