An emergency meeting on the Israel Postal Co. crisis is expected to be held tonight. Sources believe the sides will resolve the main issues standing between them: the number of delivery days that will be cut, and opening hours of Post Office branches.
Minister of Communications Gilad Erdan has insisted that the number of delivery days not be reduced to two, and has demanded three delivery days. The compromise that has been reached is 2.5 days, with alternating weeks of two and three delivery days.
The meeting today is expected to be held between Minister of Communications Gilad Erdan and Government Companies Authority director general Ori Yogev, along with Ministry of Finance Budget Director Amir Levy, and Israel Postal management. It appears that, after the details of the reform have been finalized, and after it was agreed that 1,200 workers would leave the company, the company will need to hire 100 more workers to meet the new delivery requirements.
Erdan saw the move to two delivery days as having a major negative impact on the Post Office’s service, while the Companies Authority and the Ministry of Finance claimed that Erdan’s demand for three delivery days stemmed from irrelevant considerations. As the talks dragged on, Erdan and his people felt that the Ministry of Finance and the Companies Authority were adding obstacles, and therefore stuck to their guns.
As almost all the major issues have been resolved, the parties are expected to end their dispute with a compromise today, thereby enabling the postal workers to end their sanctions before the upcoming Jewish holiday of Sukkot begins this Wednesday evening.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on October 6, 2014
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