The strike at the port of Ashdod, which began this morning, ended within hours. The Histadrut (the General Federation of Labor in Israel) announced labor sanctions for including temporary workers in shifts instead of permanent employees, which it said constituted a violation of agreements with employees.
For its part, the Ashdod Port Administration said this morning, “The Operations Committee in the Port of Ashdod began a random and illegal strike this morning, without prior warning, and contrary to the agreements signed between the company and the Histadrut, which caused activity in the Port of Ashdod.” The port is to be closed.” Management began preparing a petition to the labor court calling for a halt to the strike, but it actually ended before it could do so.
Sources told Globes that the Ministry of Transportation and the Ministry of Finance conveyed messages to the Ashdod Port Workers Committee stating that they intend to grant additional berths to the port’s direct competitors – the port of Haifa in the north and the upcoming port in the south. To the state-owned port of Ashdod, a threat that brought workers back to work within hours.
This morning, there were 24 ships waiting outside the port of Ashdod. In order to deal with the backlog, the Ashdod Port Administration announced that 85 stevedores will be temporarily appointed for periods of up to two years, according to agreements signed with the Histadrut.
Since the 2000s, reforms have been introduced in Israeli ports, as the Port of Haifa was privatized and two ports were established alongside it: the Port of Haifa, operated by the Chinese company SIPG, and the Port of the Israeli Shipyards.
In the south, in addition to the port of Ashdod, an additional port was established, the Southern Port, operated by the Dutch company TIL. The agreements concluded between the government and the Port of Haifa and the Southern Port stipulate that in the future they will receive additional berths for unloading containers. But in 2022, the then Ministers of Transport and Finance decided to hand over the additional berths early, by two years, to overcome port congestion. This order expired last April, and the ports stopped unloading at those docks.
Since then, government ministries have been working on an industry-wide arrangement under which various benefits will be given to ports that compete with each other, and the additional berths will be given back to new ports. Ashdod Port is also scheduled to receive an additional berth, but the ministries’ legal advisor instructed that it must be put out to tender, delaying the arrangement.
However, the threats issued today to Ashdod port workers were that if they did not return to work immediately, the new ports would be allowed to use the additional berths, even before the arrangements were completed. The threat puts pressure on workers whose wages are linked to the volume of work in the port of Ashdod, which would certainly have decreased if the threat had come true.
Published by Globes, Israel Business News – en.globes.co.il – on January 5, 2025.
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