Workers at Israel Chemicals Ltd.’s Dead Sea Works subsidiary have gone on strike in solidarity with workers at Dead Sea Bromine Compounds. The strike began late Wednesday night after an ultimatum was issued by the Histadrut Labor Federation and the unions at ICL demanding that management retract the layoffs of the 140 workers at Dead Sea Bromine Compounds and the 130 at DSW.
ICL management is planning to appeal to the Beer Sheba Regional Labor Court to intervene and force the workers to man the chlorine and bromine facilities at the Dead Sea arguing that their shutdown poses a safety threat.
The strike at Dead Sea Bromine has gone into its third week.
The DSW plant at Sdom has been shut down in an open ended strike. The unions have called on the government to intervene in the crisis and force Israel Corp, the majority owner of ICL to rescind the cost cutting plan. DSW union leader Armand Lankry charged that management was dragging its feet and that despite the dialogue no real plan has been presented. He said he would suspend the strike if negotiations between the parties resume on a concrete plan.
ICL management is taking a hard line and has said it would not give in to DSW demands and rejected the union condition of making negotiations contingent on acceptance of the workers’ demands in advance.