El Al is extending the company's unpaid leave until the end of February

El Al is extending the company's unpaid leave until the end of February 2021. The reason: the government's decision to close Ben-Gurion Airport until the beginning of next week, in order to reduce the risk of spreading new strains of the corona virus.
According to EL AL data, 4,864 employees of the company and its subsidiaries are currently on unpaid leave - 84 more employees than in the company's previous report from December 20, 2020. This is partly because the company returned 70 pilots to the IDF last month, following the sharp decline in activity The flights According to the company, the employees will gradually return from the hospital according to the planned scope of the flights.
At the end of the week, El Al submitted an urgent request to the Regional Labor Court to decide on the company's pilots' appeal against the court's rejection of their request to cancel the collective labor agreement signed by the Histadrut on behalf of the El Al Pilots Committee.
El Al explained the need for the urgent request in that the banks, with which it is negotiating a loan of $ 300 million, demand that the court dismiss the appeal as a condition for granting the loan.
According to estimates, the company's pilots do not intend to end their struggle to cancel the new collective labor agreement. The agreement imposed on them a 29% cut in the basic salary in the 5-year loan the company would receive, and stipulated that 5% of the salary cut would be returned to pilots automatically, and the restitution of the balance would be subject to negotiations between the committee and the company management.
It seems that the company's pilots estimate that the new controlling shareholder in El Al, Kenny Rosenberg, is more liquid than the previous controlling shareholder, Tami Mozes Borovich, and will therefore be forced to give up and reach a compromise with the pilots.