The events in Ukraine and the activities of the Foreign Ministry there have turned the spotlight on the existing labor dispute in the ministry for months and do not reach a solution.
The Foreign Ministry workers’ committee has been tightening sanctions since this morning (Sunday) after an explosion in negotiations with the Ministry of Finance. On Thursday, a negotiation meeting was held in the payroll department at the Ministry of Finance after months of shuffling the contacts and sanctions taken by the workers.
According to Foreign Ministry officials, “The huge expectation has become discouraging. Representatives of the Ministry of Finance’s salary commissioner have pursued a strategy of innocence and refused to meet any of the workers’ demands. While Foreign Ministry fighters rescue Israelis in Ukraine “.
Representatives of the Ministry of Finance refused to comply with the demands of the workers to stop the harm to their wages and conditions of employment and to return the money taken from them unilaterally. Finance representatives even claimed that they did not know the terms of employment of the workers, and that the management of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not discuss with them the problems related to the workers.
“In the Treasury we are treated with indifference and a cold shoulder”
The meeting, which took place after the direct intervention of Foreign Minister Yair Lapid with Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman, led to high expectations of the workers for a real solution to their plight, but they said they left the meeting disappointed.
Due to this, the Foreign Ministry Workers ‘Committee announced a series of exacerbations of the workers’ sanctions, which will take effect today and will include a complete cessation of electronic correspondence, including emails, telegrams and WhatsApp correspondence between headquarters and missions. , The cessation of all treatment of outgoing visits by elected officials, extensive damage to the diplomatic postal system and the horizontal stopping of all treatment of work visas at all missions in the world. These measures are in addition to the sanctions that are already in place today at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and which have already led to widespread damage to public service.
The Foreign Ministry Workers’ Committee has announced that for the time being, activities in Ukraine will be excluded from the sanctions, in order to prevent danger to the lives of Israeli citizens. “While the Foreign Ministry fighters are rescuing every Israeli in Ukraine, here in the Ministry of Finance we are being treated with indifference and a cold shoulder, we are being fought and the fire is being directed at us. Sefri, who also updated Foreign Minister Yair Lapid on the conduct encountered by the workers.
The Ministry of Finance responded that “the Foreign Ministry staff committee and Histadrut representatives met for the first time on Thursday with representatives of the Ministry of Finance. Most of the issues raised at the meeting should be clarified with the Foreign Ministry management. In order to continue the discourse. ”
“Feeling like Prisoners of the State of Israel”
Among the victims of the workers’ sanctions are dozens of families who brought babies through surrogates in Georgia. The building in Tbilisi is still home to dozens of families waiting to receive the documents of the babies born so that they can return to Israel. One of them, Galia Ben-David, has been in Tbilisi for almost two months and does not see the end. In a conversation with Globes, she said that she and her partner invested a lot of capital (about $ 100,000) in the surrogacy process, and a month ago their daughter was born to a local surrogate mother. They accompanied the process and hoped that within weeks they would be able to return to Israel, but due to the sanctions, the embassy does not issue the appropriate documents for citizenship and the Israeli passport for the baby.
The stay leads to multiple expenses and also to absence from both parents’ workplace. “We are observant of Torah and mitzvos and find it very difficult to obtain kosher food here,” says Ben-David. “The rabbi approved us to give baby food without kosher to the baby, because there is no kosher food here. My health condition due to my kidney transplant has deteriorated, and the medications are running out, and the mental condition is also difficult from day to day.
“We feel like prisoners of the State of Israel. I do not understand why it came to us – women who want to bring life into the world. Someone needs to stop it and now, we have no more time and strength to continue like this.”
The problem is getting worse by the day, as dozens more families are added each week whose babies are born here, and parents will have to stay in Georgia until the documents are received.
In addition, embassy and consulate employees do not issue permits to foreign workers who are supposed to come to Israel from China, Turkey and other countries, thousands of workers are on hold, and the projects they were supposed to work on are delayed.