Medical residents approve deal with Treasury

Tel Aviv's Ichilov residents vote against measures, but agree to join majority in signing the deal.

By JPOST.COM STAFF, JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH
Doctors residents x-ray 311 (photo credit: Thinkstock/Imagebank)
Doctors residents x-ray 311
(photo credit: Thinkstock/Imagebank)
A representive body of medical residents voted in favor Wednesday of a draft deal with the Finance Ministry to end a months-long labor dispute.
According to Israel Radio, 269 residents voted in favor of the agreement - which will make additional payments and grants for residents - and 163 voted against.
RELATED:Residents, Treasury reach tentative agreement Residents, Treasury agree Zamir, Mironi to mediate Representatives said they would respect the rule of the majority, and will "stand as one behind the understandings that were reached" with the Treasury, according to Israel Radio.
Earlier, medical residents at Ichilov Hopital in Tel Aviv said that despite rejecting a draft agreement that would end an ongoing work dispute in the nation's wards, they would not stand in the way of a majority opinion amongst the nation's hospitals.
Representatives of hundreds of hospital residents are due to sign a mediated agreement Wednesday evening.
The doctors were unhappy with the nine-year labor accord reached at the end of August between the Israel Medical Association and employers.
What Treasury wage negotiators were unable to achieve in nine months of talking with doctors was apparently accomplished in two weeks by Yitzhak Zamir, a former Supreme Court justice, and Mordehai Mironi of the University of Haifa Law Faculty. This followed Labor Court and Supreme Court rulings that prevented young doctors from the center of the country and Haifa from resigning en masse in protest.
According to a statement by former Hadassah Medical Organization director-general Shlomo Mor-Yosef, the deal with not break the official agreement signed by the IMA, but will make additional payments and grants for residents, especially for extra work such as working exclusively in the public hospitals instead of moonlighting elsewhere. Mor-Yosef is a temporary adviser to the Health Ministry on the dispute and has sat in on negotiations during the last three sessions.
The deal will also reduce the number of monthly off-hour shifts to six and give them a guaranteed day off every week. Throughout the mediation, the lawyers kept in mind the fact that breaking the IMA accord would be a dangerous precedent that would encourage rebellions by small groups unhappy with labor agreements signed by representative organizations.