Foreign Ministry workers stop dealing with diplomatic cables as part of work sanctions

Move comes in protest against what the ministry's worker's committee says is the Treasury's foot-dragging on signing a collective collective agreement with the workers.

By HERB KEINON
Protest banners on Foreign Ministry building in Jerusalem: The fight for home starts abroad. (photo credit: Courtesy)
Protest banners on Foreign Ministry building in Jerusalem: The fight for home starts abroad.
(photo credit: Courtesy)
The Foreign Ministry's diplomatic workers' ratcheted up their creeping work sanctions on Monday, refusing to deal with “diplomatic cables,” the bread-and-butter of daily diplomatic work.
The move comes in protest against what the ministry's worker's committee says is the Treasury's foot-dragging on signing a collective collective agreement with the workers.
The Finance Ministry is not commenting on the matter.
The newest round of work sanctions began last week with the workers' committee disrupting meetings inside the ministry, a tactic that continued as well on Monday as workers walked through the halls at various points during the day, blowing on horns and whistles, and turning lights on and off.
On Monday the workers' committee instructed the employees not to deal with the diplomatic cables, the tool through which information is passed from Israel's representations around the world to the ministry. A statement put out by the committee said that the coworkers would step up their sanctions in the coming days, and may disrupt the work of the UN delegation at the UN next week during Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's visit there.
An 11-day strike in March closed embassies abroad and prevented high-profile visits both to and from Israel. That strike, the first of its kind in the state’s history, was the culmination of a labor dispute that stretched back to the beginning of 2013 over salaries and work conditions for diplomats serving at the ministry in Jerusalem and abroad.
The strike ended with agreement that an updated collective agreement would be drawn up, something that has not yet transpired.