Histadrut approved a labour dispute in Bitan Winery Group

Just before they came to understand about the cut needed to bring the company together and signed a new collective bargaining agreement, the Histadrut for the Mega workers of the Bitan Winery Group on Thursday approved a labor dispute. They claim that the company is "dragging its feet in signing a collective bargaining agreement and conducting bad faith negotiations." Accordingly, 3,300 mega-workers will be able to disable their work for another two weeks.
In a letter sent to the CEO of the Bitan Winery Company Michael Lubuszitz, the Chairman of the Workers' Committee Eyal Eli claims that the parties have long been negotiating a collective agreement for streamlining Mega and recently a number of negotiations have been held between the parties, and even a draft collective agreement has been prepared. On the agreements reached. "In light of the recent progress in negotiations, the workers' committee agreed to allow the company's management to become more efficient, even before signing the collective agreement, in part through the dismissal of temporary workers and the taking of vacations, while imposing an unusual workload on the existing employees," it says.
But, according to me, yesterday - after a ten-hour negotiation meeting at the company's offices during which agreements were reached and a final draft of the collective agreement was reached - the draft was not signed, because management claimed that the owner Nachum Bitan was not at the company's offices at the time. As a result, the workers' representatives were invited to sign the draft collective agreement today at 15:00, but, instead of signing the collective agreement, Eli argues, the workers were asked to enter into the draft "far-reaching changes, which undermine all the elements of the agreement and could lead to the collapse of all the agreements reached. Between the parties, as expressed in the final draft. "
According to Eli, there is no doubt that the company's management has acted irresponsibly while negotiating in good faith. In his letter, he writes: "I inform you that dragging your feet on your behalf and refusing to sign the collective agreement after the full agreement reached between the parties has been assimilated, ignoring the fact that the negotiations between the parties have ended, violate the trust between the parties and completely undermine the relations between the parties." .

According to him, the workers committee has shown great responsibility and agreed to accept the management's requirements regarding the efficiency of the company; Agreed to assist the Company in bringing the group together through layoffs, staff reductions, branch closures and more - but as soon as it was concluded that the negotiations were being conducted by the management in Kahash and did not intend to sign the draft collective agreement as agreed yesterday, they would not hesitate to follow all the rules. At their disposal. "The workers 'committee will not allow the company's management to take unilateral steps and infringe on workers' rights," it said.