Strikes continued at Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (NYSE: TEVA; TASE: TEVA) sites in Israel in response to the management's announcement last Thursday that 14,000 employees would be laid off worldwide, 1,750 of them in Israel. As an expression of solidarity with the Teva workers, there were half-day strikes yesterday in Israel at government ministries, the airports and seaports, the banks, the Tel Aviv Stock exchange, the courts, insurance companies, telecommunications companies, local authorities, and other places. Hospitals in Israel worked on a Saturday format.
The Histadrut (General Federation of Labor in Israel) said today that the strike would continue at Teva's global headquarters in Petah Tikva, the Teva Medical plant in Ashdod, the Teva Plantex plant in Netanya, and in the companies' facilities in Jerusalem, where the workers have been conducting a sit-in since yesterday. There will be partial strike at Teva in Kfar Saba today between 12:00 and 16:00. Workers meetings are being held outside Teva offices and production facilities.
Histadrut chairman Avi Nissenkorn is due to hold a meeting today with Minister of Finance Moshe Kahlon and Minister of the Economy and Industry Eli Cohen together with representatives of all the workers committees at Teva. The meeting is due to take place at the Ministry of Finance in Jerusalem.
Minister of Welfare and Social Services Haim Katz visited the Teva pill factory and held a working meeting with factory manager Noam Shamir and National Labor Federation chairman Yoav Simhi. "This is a factory with a future, and we are going to fight" Katz said. "It will be a demanding campaign. We have to be patient, and no-one should think there won't be casualties." Katz is due to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this morning in the framework of the ministerial committee set up yesterday to deal with the Teva crisis.
Workers from the Teva Medical plant at Ashdod are blocking the northen access to the city, and hundreds of Teva workers have besieged the Ministry of Finance in Jerusalem.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on December 18, 2017
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2017