lay offs: The postal company will dismiss more than 1,000 employees and Bezeq group around 400

The wave of layoffs in the economy is expanding. High-tech companies are not the only ones that are laying off workers, and it turns out that other companies on the fringes of technology are also parting ways with hundreds of workers.
The Bezeq management signed a collective agreement with the representation of the 3,000 employees of the subsidiaries Pelephone and Bezeq International - the parties announced. Along with enshrining various benefits for employees, including general wage increases and unique wage increases for low wage earners, it was agreed that within the framework of the agreement 400 of the employees of the two companies would voluntarily retire.
The agreement, which will be valid until 2025, is an umbrella agreement that will operate alongside the normal agreements in each company. Among other things, the agreement includes a general wage increase of 3% in each of the years of the agreement (9% in total), as well as social wage increases for employees with at least five years of experience, whose wages are lower than the average wage in the economy. The agreement also establishes an increase in the company's participation in meals, an increase in the employee's personal welfare budget by 23%, activation of a signature grant of up to NIS 15,000, participation in dental insurance, the regulation of work-from-home procedures and a commitment to conduct negotiations to add employee representatives to the companies' boards of directors.
It was also determined that employees will not be fired in streamlining procedures and will be able to retire with an increased voluntary retirement grant amounting to 280%. According to the agreement, 300 Bezeq International employees will retire voluntarily by 2024, and 100 Pelephone employees by 2025.
In addition, the agreement stipulated individual benefits for the various companies. At Pelephone, the management has committed to keep the cellular network under its ownership and not to lease it for at least 3.5 years, the fact day will be shortened from 9 to 8.5 hours, the training date for obtaining tenure will be shortened from 3.5 to 3 years and the ceiling for the provision for the continuing education fund will be canceled. At Bezeq International, it was agreed to increase the rate for a day of recovery to NIS 520, increase the clothing reimbursement to 1,000 NIS, expand eligibility for paid participation in kindergartens from age 3 to age 5, and expand eligibility for a grant for summer camps from age 10 to age 12.
Meanwhile, it turns out that the wave of layoffs does not stop at the postal company either. The privatization of Israel Post shows that 1,600 employees will be laid off, branches will be closed, deliveries will become more expensive
Towards the privatization of the post office: the state will finance the retirement of 1,050 employees in exchange for real estate
The move will leave about 310 agencies out of 470 post offices that are operated by franchisees, which are also dwindling. Many postal agencies have closed and franchisees claim that the model offered by the postal company is not profitable.
In 2022, the company closed 65 branches, and by January 2023, 73 branches will be closed. At the same time, it opened 15 branches, which are usually not an alternative to closures.
The immediate meaning of the approval of the plan is that today hundreds of summonses will be issued for a hearing to the workers who will be fired in the first blow, about 650 out of 1,050 workers who are going home. According to the agreement, some of them will be defined as retirees who go into early retirement - a partial bridging pension until retirement age, and some are fired. In the second phase (until June 2023) the additional 400 employees will be laid off. This move will allow the closing of the branches.
Most of the fired are permanent employees and some are temporary. The result of the huge layoffs will be a reduction of the workforce in the company to 4,335 jobs in January 2023 and 3,880 jobs by July 2023 and a reduction in standards.
30 jobs from the second batch will be submitted for the approval of the committee which will be able to propose alternative retirees. The average retirement age will be 58 and the permanent employees who will be laid off will receive a retirement grant of NIS 18,000. It was decided that when the company ceases to be a government company, it will distribute grants to the remaining employees every calendar year in a total amount of 10% of its operating profit, subject to the fact that it has a net profit in that year. If it does not exist, the grant will accumulate and be awarded in the following years.
There is not yet a final list of the branches that will be closed because the mail has to receive individual approvals for closings in the coming months and not all the employees in these branches know yet that they will be fired. Some of them will be fired this month and some in the second phase until June. That is, contrary to the claim of the Ministry of Communications that the workers who will be fired are mainly wasteful headquarters workers, it seems that a considerable part of them are workers apparently necessary for the public, employed in the postal units for not high wages.
In the mail they said that they will offer consumers additional solutions in cooperation with the local and municipal councils, among other things mobile mail services, store-within-a-store.