Tel Aviv Stock Exchange employees intensified work disruptions on Monday by interfering with the orderly conclusion of the trade day.
Management responded by threatening to close down trade entirely if disruptions continue today (Tuesday April 1st). Workers retaliated by diverting all incoming calls to the CEO's office.
This comes after a weeks-long overtime ban (ever since March 6th) forcing trade to close at 14:15 local time, a full three hours earlier than was usual.
The unresolved issues remain the same. Union demands are:
- Including outsourced employees in group contract.
Management claims this to be impractical due to most of them being only partially employed. - Pay raises to be 3.5% across the board, rather than selective.
Management claims that union demands are in fact a 15% raise, ostensibly ridiculous since current salaries average above 25 thousand NIS per month.
Sources (in Hebrew):
- Ynet's coverage of Monday's disruptions and threat, and of Tuesday's retaliation.
- The Marker (Haaretz) coverage
Further analysis:
This Globes correspondent (Hebrew link) suggests that the overtime ban has not really harmed the TASE, since the shorter work day did not result in lower trade cycles. In fact, some of the sources she cites posit that a shorter trade day has actually improved trading, since it has resulted in decreased human error and pressure. One might speculate that this is in fact the reason such a move was decided upon by the Histadrut-operated union, as opposed to a strike, or other, more harmful measures.
