Clal Insurance Enterprises Holdings Ltd. (TASE: CLIS) CEO Shy Talmon today warned employees against unionizing, two days after "Globes" reported that hundreds of employees had joined the Histadrut (General Federation of Labor in Israel). Talmon reminded the company's 4,000 employees about the closing of Hasneh Insurance Company, which he linked to its employees opting to exercise their right to unionize.
"There is a reason why Israel's insurance employees are not unionized in the Histadrut," Talmon wrote the employees. "An insurance company run by the Histadrut (Hasneh) collapsed and disappeared from the map. We don’t want to go there. A collective agreement has many disadvantages: it creates uniformity in job conditions, which makes it difficult, and sometimes impossible, to compensate employees on a personal basis based on performance. Even in workplaces with collective agreements, employees are not immune to being fired."
Talmon fired arrows directly at the Histadrut, including the following interesting item: "Histadrut employees themselves are not organized under a collective agreement."
The Histadrut initially asserted that there was a collective agreement, but a source at the union admitted to "Globes" that the employees worked under a "collective arrangement", which is less binding than a collective agreement. Talmon's point could embarrass the Histadrut as far as keeping promises is concerned.
In response, the Histadrut wrote to Talmon and Clal Insurance chairman Avigdor Kaplan, saying, "The purpose of the letter is to slander the union and sow cowardice among workers, in part by trying to use illegitimate and illegal fear-mongering about the consequences of unionizing."
The Histadrut also warned Clal Insurance's legal advisor that it would take legal action against the company Tel Aviv regional manager for allegedly threatening inspectors and ordering them to withdraw their union applications. The Histadrut says that this causes real harm to the right to unionize, and warned that it would sue the manager for NIS 200,000, the penalty prescribed in law.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on June 6, 2012
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2012