In the past 24 hours, employees at Ernst & Young Israel - Kost Forer Gabbay & Kasierer, Israel's largest accounting firm, have begun the process of establishing a workers committee, while making grave allegations against the firm's management concerning what they say are their low pay and poor working conditions.
An anonymous e-mail message was sent to most of the firm's employees yesterday calling on the workers to express support for the establishment of a workers committee by sending an e-mail message to a special mailbox designed to win their votes.
By the end of the day, 300 messages from workers asking to join the workers committee had been received in the mailbox, and the number reached over 400 today.
"This amounts to about one quarter of the worker in the firm in less than 24 hours," one of the young accountants who sparked the move told "Globes." "This strengthens the feeling that the frustration and complaints heard in the firm's corridors about the poor conditions and low salaries are shared by everyone there."
"Garnering billions at our expense"
In 2014, leading accounting firms in Israel are still unwilling to disclose their income, even though this information is made public elsewhere in the world. Ernst & Young, whose Israeli branch, Kost Forer Gabbay & Kasierer, is the leader each year in all parameters of size and quality, reported NIS 27.4 billion in income in 2013.
The firm in Israel has an annual turnover in the hundreds of millions, if not billions, but the workers say this is at their expense.
"We have no doubt that the firm's intake is in the millions, if not the billions, and we, who are earning a shekel and a half, are suffering from this maximization of profits," a young accountant at the firm said, adding, "Our partner, who is receiving the profits, hosted us in his luxurious home with his swimming pool, and tells us occasionally about the $100,000 bonus he got for the successful offering we made. He's simply indifferent to how the workers feel. There's total alienation between the partners and the workers."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on May 21, 2015
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