Entire city of Dimona to strike on Sunday

Mayor Beni Bitton plans move in solidarity with local workers facing layoffs and forced early retirement

By ToI Staff 13 May 2015, 12:11 pm

Edit

Demonstration outside the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem on March 11, 2015, protesting against mass layoffs of hundreds of workers at Israel Chemicals. (photo credit: Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Dimona city council officials have declared a citywide strike this coming Sunday in solidarity with the striking workers of Israel Chemicals and about 60 employees of Meteor, a local producer of agricultural netting that is in danger of shutting down.

Schools will be closed, and Highway 25, a main roadway in the south that passes through Dimona, will be blocked, they said.

Dimona Mayor Beni Bitton announced the strike at a special meeting on Tuesday night with city council members and with the chairmen of the workers’ committees of the major employers in the region, including Israel Chemicals, Dead Sea Works and Meteor.

Bitton said at the meeting that he had telephoned finance minister-designate Moshe Kahlon, asking that he use the veto power that the government holds due to its majority share in Israel Chemicals to shoot down the projected layoffs, the Ynet news outlet reported.

“You’re a socially aware minister, connected to the people. You carried out a revolution in the cellular communications industry. Carry out one small revolution for us,” he recalled telling Kahlon over the phone.

Addressing the head of the workers’ committee, Bitton said, “We are your soldiers.”

Talks that took place on Tuesday night between Histadrut labor union chairman Avi Nissenkorn and Nir Gilad, chairman of the board at Israel Chemicals, remained fruitless as roughly 170 workers face layoffs or involuntary early retirement. While the workers want their fate to be decided by an independent arbitrator, the management of Israel Chemicals seeks to retain control over who will be let go.

Many of the employees of Dead Sea Works and Bromine Compounds who have been on strike for the past three months are also from Dimona, further compounding the employment crisis in the area.

The workers at Meteor, which is NIS 30 million in debt, have not been paid their salaries and the company is facing closure.

A hearing on the Histadrut’s demand for a restraining order against the layoffs will take place in the Regional Labor Court in Beersheba on Monday.