IBA staff hold protest Seder outside home of labor union head
State broadcaster employees say Avi Nissenkorn hasn't done 'a single thing for us,' demand he act to save their jobs
Dozens of Israel Broadcasting Authority workers held the annual Passover Seder meal outside the home of the head of the Histadrut Labor Union on Monday to protest a deal to establish a new public broadcaster that is putting hundreds of them out of work.
“Does anyone care that we’re being sent home? We expect you to come out and protect us,” the workers told journalists gathered outside Avi Nissenkorn’s residence.
Last week, Nissenkorn declared a labor dispute over the new broadcaster, paving the way for a general strike in the coming weeks.
The Histadrut says the deal between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon that would strip the new broadcaster, formally called “Kan” and widely known as Hata’agid (the corporation), of its news division, harms its employees.
“The decisions on the changes were made with complete disregard for the workers’ representatives,” Nissenkorn said last week.
On Monday, IBA workers — hundreds of whom are losing their jobs as much of the existing IBA is closed down — castigated Nissenkorn’s handling of the entire process.
“You’ve disrespected us,” one worker said at the protest meal. “You haven’t done a single thing for us. In two weeks, we’ll be tossed aside, what are we supposed to tell our children? To explain why we are mourning on the Passover holiday?”
“Does anybody in this country actually understand or care that 1,000 families are going to be sent home?” the worker said.
Under the latest Netanyahu-Kahlon deal — which ended a coalition standoff that threatened new elections — Kan will lose its centerpiece news division, for which staff had been hired ahead of the intended launch on April 30. Staffers from the existing Israel Broadcasting Authority, which is being replaced, will instead provide the station’s news in the coming months until a new, separate broadcast entity is established to deal with all current affairs offerings, which will be made up primarily of former Israel Broadcasting Authority employees. The March 30 deal will likely offset the saved IBA jobs with redundancies at Kan.
The agreement was the fruit of negotiations between Netanyahu, who has sought to torpedo the new broadcaster and Kahlon, who has pushed for it to replace the IBA, which had been beset by low ratings and accusations of political cronyism.