Haifa Chemicals employees protest in Tel Aviv against ammonia tank closure

Jobs on the line, workers’ and manufacturers’ unions join fray, slamming move made due to safety concerns in the bay city

By Shoshanna Solomon

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28 March 2017, 2:50 pm

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Shoshanna Solomon was The Times of Israel's Startups and Business reporter

Hundreds of Haifa Chemicals Ltd. workers protested in the streets of Tel Aviv Tuesday against the closing of an ammonia plant, which they say could put them out of their jobs.

The demonstrators flooded the Azrieli intersection in the heart of the city in protest of a court decision to close a huge ammonia tank on the Haifa bay by April 1, following concerns that damage to the storage facility could endanger the lives of tens of thousands of people in Haifa, Israel’s third-largest city.

The tank stores the compound that Haifa Chemicals and others use in their production lines. Haifa Chemicals is the main consumer of the imported ammonia, which it uses to make potassium nitrate, a fertilizer used by farmers in Israel and globally to grow flowers, fruit and vegetables.

“I hope that in the end they will listen to us and find a solution to the ammonia problem,” said 62-year old Emil Lugaci, who has worked for 35 years at Haifa Chemicals and is in charge of the ammonia tank’s maintenance. “The tank is already empty and 3-4 production lines in the north and the south have been shut down. In the coming three days, all of Haifa Chemicals’ activities will be halted.”

The ammonia storage tank in the northern city of Haifa. (Courtesy of Environmental Protection Ministry)

Haifa Chemicals has said its business cannot function without ammonia and is lobbying the government to find an alternative supply of the compound until a new manufacturing plant can be set up in the south of the country.

The Histadrut national workers’ union has also joined the fight, with the Histadrut’s chairman, Avi Nissenkorn, proclaiming a labor dispute in the industry and among employees in the south of Israel.

The president of the Manufacturers Association of Israel, which has warned of the impact to Israel’s economy if the supply of ammonia is halted, also on Tuesday called on industries to avoid setting up their plants in Haifa.

Haifa Chemicals workers protesting ammonia tank closure in Tel Aviv (Courtesy: Tal Gimpel)

“Don’t go to a place in which the mayor is motivated by populist considerations. Don’t be there,” Shraga Brosh said at a conference in the north of the country, according to the financial news site Calcalist. “You cannot empty an ammonia plant without solving the problem and deciding where the next tank will be. Hospitals, operating and refrigerating rooms, they all cannot survive without ammonia.”

Haifa Chemicals employs some 800 workers directly, and indirectly some additional 3,600 people are expected to be affected by the closure of operations, according to the Economy and Industry Ministry. These include truck drivers, producers of the plastic bags in which the fertilizer is stored, and shippers. The company is the second-biggest user of shipping containers in Israel.

Haifa Mayor Yona Yahav and Professor Ehud Keinan speak at a press conference at the Haifa Municipality regarding a report on the dangers of the ammonia tank in the Haifa bay. January 31, 2017. (Flash90)

The operations of Haifa Chemicals account for 2 percent of Israel’s industrial exports and 1% of total exports from Israel, the Manufacturers Association of Israel said in a February report. Its sales total some $600-$700 million, 97% of which are exported, according to data provided by the company.

The Haifa municipality has been lobbying for the closure of the plant after a report it commissioned found the ammonia operations pose a serious risk to the population.

The report warned that if ruptured, the vast ammonia storage tank would suffocate 16,000 victims under a toxic cloud. The tank could “fall apart tomorrow morning,” the report’s author, chemistry professor Ehud Keinan, said at a press conference to release the report on January 31, held at the municipality.

“The small businessman from Ramat Gan is preaching morality to more than one million residents in Haifa and the north,” Yona Yahav, Haifa’s mayor, said in a text message, commenting on Brosh’s remarks. He is “one of the most failed representatives of all time of the glorious Israeli industry. Whoever doesn’t understand that there is no industry without society or its safety, should hand in his keys. Brosh has proven once again that we must not abandon the north in the hands of a small activist from Ramat Gan. ”

Environmental groups have lobbied for the closure of the tank and have said that Haifa Chemicals is cynically using the workers as a chip in its negotiations with the government.

An email sent to the Finance Ministry seeking comment was not immediately replied.