The special collective agreement includes retroactive wage increases from the month of February, an increase in the welfare and recreation budget, the guarantee of job security for years, a commitment and a commitment to preserve the rights and collective agreements of the employees as part of the tender concerning the operation of the silos in the future.
The agreement was signed after the Chairman of the Union of Grain Importers in Israel, Itai Ron, addressed the CEO of the Israel Ports Company Itzik Blumenthal and the CEO of the Gadot Company that operates the Haifa silo with a demand for negotiations to compensate the importers for the significant delays in unloading and delivering grains during the past month, as part of the outages The frequency of working in silos. In his letter, Ron demanded that the importers not be charged for storage costs in the silo for any period of time in which the grains could not be removed efficiently and continuously from the silo. According to him, the repeated work stoppages are caused by sanctions taken by the workers – this, while according to the workers’ committee, the work stoppages are caused due to manpower shortages.
“The length of time that the line of grain ships outside the port is now about two weeks before entering the silo for unloading,” Ron wrote to Gadot and Han’i management last Thursday and added that on Thursday no grain was unloaded from the ships into the silo at all and the delivery of the grain from the silo was limited to one shift only. “Who knows what will happen next week?” he wondered. “The holidays are approaching and as a result the delays are expected to increase both in unloading and delivery, the grain ships continue to arrive as scheduled and the public wants to continue eating the food as scheduled.”
“It is unnecessary to expand on the importance of the silo for the Israeli economy. Therefore, it is understood that the silo should be in good working order and function continuously and efficiently as it was in the past in order to ensure the ongoing supply of food to the citizens of Israel. Work stoppages as we have experienced in recent weeks endanger the nutritional security of all of us and should be stopped immediately. We call on you to act quickly and decisively to put an end to these problems in the functioning of the silo,” he added in his letter. The Israel Ports Company placed the responsibility on the Gadot Company and stated that in their opinion the letter was addressed to them by mistake since they are not the operators of the silo.
The chairman of the transport workers’ union, Avi Adri, said: “The workers of the silo in Haifa are doing sacred work in unloading ships of wheat, corn, soybeans, barley, sorghum and more.” This is extremely hard work and employees with the highest work ethic. The union and the area will continue to strengthen the silo workers even after the holding of the tender to select an operator for the silo.’