Meuhedet sanctions canceled as negotiations intensify

4,000 non-medical staffers of Kupat Holim Meuhedet – the country’s third-largest health fund – decide to return to work as usual.

By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH
Meuhedet workers strike 370 (photo credit: Courtesy Histadrut)
Meuhedet workers strike 370
(photo credit: Courtesy Histadrut)
Some 4,000 non-medical staffers of Kupat Holim Meuhedet – the country’s third-largest health fund – decided Sunday night to return to work as usual. They had been preventing patients from undergoing lab tests for several days.
The Meuhedet workers around the country had been protesting what they call “a stalemate in negotiations and the management’s and the Treasury’s foot-dragging.”
The two sides decided that starting Monday, the organizational part of the collective agreement would be in effect. This entails the mechanisms for dismissal of workers by consent, the method for hiring workers and advancing employees.
The rest of the issues that upset the union will be discussed in intensive negotiations from right after Succot until the end of October, the union said.
In addition, the negotiating team will be expanded.
As for the health fund’s dental clinics, negotiating teams relating to workers’ demands will also be boosted.
Both management and the union knew that if customers were inconvenienced or angered too much by sanctions, they could easily switch to another among the four public health funds.