Foreign Ministry employees threaten work dispute

By HERB KEINON
The Foreign Ministry's worker's committee threatened to declare a work dispute Monday if the ministry did not open up a cadets' course for new diplomats and appoint a human resources director at the ministry. According to a statement put out by the worker's committee, only 90 diplomats have been hired by the ministry in the past decade, while some 300 workers - who did not go through the diplomats course - were hired and have in many cases been appointed to diplomatic positions abroad. This harms the quality of the Foreign Service, the statement said. "Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and director general Aharon Abramovitch promised in the past to restore the professionalism to the ministry, but in practice have done nothing," the statement said. The Ministry's management had no comment on the issue.