Histadrut declares labor dispute for Meuhedet staff

“It can’t be that management wants to go two years backwards and renege on agreements already reached with us,” a Histadrut official says.

By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH
Meuhedet 311 (photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post)
Meuhedet 311
(photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post)
A labor dispute was declared by the Histadrut labor federation on Thursday after the “management of Kupat Holim Meuhedet told it and the works committee that it would renege on agreements reached during the past two years.”
The Histadrut said another reason for the announcement was the management’s “change for the worse” in dealing with the third-largest health fund’s workers and their rights and a unilateral structural change in the field of dental services by the health fund.
“It can’t be that management wants to go two years backwards and renege on agreements already reached with us,” a Histadrut official said.
Two years ago, Meuhedet staffers organized within the Histadrut to anchor their rights in a collective agreement.
The health fund employs 5,500 workers. After management recognized the union, the two sides began to negotiate a collective agreement, but in the past few months, the Histadrut said, the Meuhedet management was changed again, “and it distanced itself from agreements made.”
Ada Kamerski, the chairman of medical institutions in the Histadrut, said the Meuhedet employees “feel a lack of security as a result of problems and changes in the health fund’s administration.”
On Wednesday, Health Minister Yael German announced that she agreed to the Meuhedet board of directors’ dismissal of the health fund’s director-general, Prof. Asher Elhayany. German later announced on Wednesday that Zeev Wurmbrand, who between 2002 and 2007 served as director-general of the largest health fund, Clalit Health Services, would serve as acting director-general of Meuhedet.
Wormbrand, who is 62, was also CEO of the Phoenix Investment and Finance Company Ltd. and director-general of Alon Holdings in Blue Square Israel Ltd.


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