New wage agreement was signed at Bank Hapoalim - up to1,000 shekel a month increase

After a year of negotiations, the announcement of a labor dispute, and the imposition of sanctions, a new wage agreement was signed at Bank Hapoalim. The bank's employees' organization and the General Histadrut announced today (Sunday) a new collective agreement for the next 5 years with the bank's management. The most significant clause in the agreement is A commitment by the workers to pay during the period of the agreement (2027-2023) over half a billion additional shekels, which will be divided among the bank's 6,000 employees.
One of the significant clauses in the agreement is a salary increase of NIS 900-1,000 for the employees which will be paid in several installments, with NIS 300 of which depends on the bank's return on capital being 15%. This is an ambitious goal: although the return on equity in the first quarter of 2023 was 17%, between the second quarter and the fourth quarter of 2023 it was less than 15%.
In addition, the bank will give each employee a signature grant in the amount of two salaries that will be given in two installments: one with the signing of the agreement and the other at the beginning of 2024. Also, branch employees will receive a grant of NIS 1,500, depending on the bank's yield. The committee notes that the average increase per employee is 50% higher than the increase per employee given in the previous wage agreement. It should be emphasized that this is the average supplement, and in practice there are differences in the various grants and benefits that each employee will receive.
As mentioned, the agreement comes after a struggle between the committee and the management, which was reached according to the workers against the background of "unreasonable demands on the part of the bank's management to reduce the rights of the collective workers, and the management's intention to reduce as much as possible the new employment of collective workers, thereby harming the occupational security of the workers." The tensions also intensified against the background of the bank's profits, which in 2022 stood at a record of NIS 6.5 billion, which increased the employees' expectations for the compensation that would be expressed in the salary agreement.