Hundreds of Elbit Systems Ltd. (Nasdaq: ESLT; TASE: ESLT) unit Elisra workers went on strike yesterday, claiming that management is planning to lay off 500 workers, and is expanding its outsourcing activity significantly.
Some 370 engineers and other employees who currently work at the company’s Bnei Brak complex went on strike yesterday, and hundreds more engineers, technicians, and production workers in the same complex joined them today.
Elisra’s workers’ committee warned that there could be disruptions in the supply of systems to the company’s customers in Israel and abroad as a result of the strike. The workers’ committee explained the strike as being due to management’s plan to transfer the Bnei Brak complex activity to its complex in Holon - under the guise of organizational changes and the consolidation its activity with the activities of other Elbit Systems units.
Elisra develops and manufactures computerized warfare systems, command and control systems, intelligence-gathering solutions, and radar and antenna systems. The company employs 1,500 workers, 900 of whom are unionized under a collective agreement.
“The fear is that the layoffs will take place as part of the move to the Holon complex,” a workers’ committee representative said today. “The CFO told the workers’ committee that 500 of the unionized workers are expected to be fired in the near future.”
The workers’ committee claims that when the Bnei Brak complex is vacated, Elbit will have unoccupied land worth more than a billion shekels. The workers’ committee further said that that Elbit Systems management has been harassing the unionized workers in attempt to get them to switch from the collective agreement to personal agreements. The workers claim that this attempt indicates that Elbit Systems intends to do away with all organized labor within the group.
Yesterday’s Elisra workers’ committee announcement claimed, among other things, that Elbit Systems has significantly expanded the outsourcing of Elisra’s activities over the past three years. The workers’ committee sees these activities as a war of attrition that management is waging against organized labor, and an attempt to bring about the end of these workers’ employment and the recruitment of other workers with personal work agreements. Furthermore, the workers’ committee claimed, that Elisra management denies many workers the possibility of participating in professional exhibitions abroad.
Elbit Systems did not respond to these claims, however, a source close to Elisra denied the allegation that the company plans to lay off 500 workers in a conversation with “Globes.” The source claims that Elisra management denied the claim regarding this intention, and explained matters also to the workers’ committee members, and that the company is even currently in the process of recruiting more workers. The source denies the claim that outsourcing of projects has been expanded, and claims that nothing of the sort ever took place.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on June 3, 2015
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