Employees at Elbit Systems Ltd. (Nasdaq: ESLT; TASE: ESLT) subsidiaries will hold meetings on Sunday on a possible joint campaign against the defense company's management. Meetings will be held at Elisra's plant in Bnei Brak, and at the Tadiran Systems and Tadiran Spectralinks plants in Holon. The employees announced today that they will work together against management's alleged plans, which they say will harm their rights.
Elisra produces electronic warfare and command and control systems, Tadiran Systems produces wireless communications systems, and Tadiran Spectralink produces data communications and search and rescue systems for military and civilian use.
The employees claim that Elbit Systems' management is planning layoffs, which it is camouflaging as a restructuring, with a focus on outsourcing the plants' operations. The employees claim that the assembly of systems and management of the central warehouse, which was recently transferred to a logistics contractor, will be the main operations affected.
The three plants have 1,700 employees, and their workers committees said today that the outsourcing was intended to "dry them up" in order to allow Elbit Systems' management to prepare the ground for future layoffs. The employees suspect that management intends to fire hundreds of employees. They also claim that outsourcing enables management to bypass the unions and labor contracts.
Elisra employees said today that they will act to preserve the labor contracts signed with management 18 months ago. These agreements were reached after a protracted campaign that included a two-week strike.
Elbit Systems expressed astonishment at the employees' announcement that they were preparing for a possible campaign against management's plans. The company said that the planned union meetings were presented to the employees a few days ago as an update ahead of the switch from company cars to leased cars, and incentives to use hybrid cars. Elbit Systems' management added that they were unaware of any plan that included layoffs or a reduction in operations.
An Elbit Systems spokeswoman dismissed all the employees' allegations, saying that they were groundless. "There is no plan for layoffs; the opposite is true," she said.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on January 23, 2014
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