E1 A1 mechanics ended their work slowdown this afternoon as a condition for a meeting they requested with Transport Minister Gad Yaacobi who cut short a trip to England and returned home this morning to deal with the airline’s worsening labor dispute. Airline sources said that if no hitches develop. E1 A1 would resume normal flight schedules by this evening, relieving a backlog of some 2,000 stranded passengers at Ben Gurion Airport.
E1 A1 was grounded by a work stoppage earlier today after the five-member mechanics union committee was summoned to police headquarters to answer charges that they had disobeyed last week’s court order to the mechanics to resume normal work. The union representatives were released on IL 1,500 ball each but outrage over the police intervention threatened for a time to precipitate a general strike of all E1 A1 employees.
Various workers committees met during the afternoon to consider retaliatory action but dropped their threat, for the time being at least, when the mechanics said they were ready to meet with Yaacobi to discuss a settlement.
The government stepped into the E1 A1 dispute yesterday with a Cabinet call to the 450 E1 A1 mechanics to end their rule-book slowdown which prevented the airline from adhering to its published flight schedules. The Cabinet agreed to allow E1 A1 to charter foreign aircraft to replace its grounded fleet and Labor Minister Moshe Baram said the government was considering shutting down E1 A1 and establishing a new national air carrier as a last resort.
The airline which ended last year with a marginal profit says it has suffered, severe losses from the work slow-down and a 24-hour strike by mechanics and maintenance men that preceded it last week. E1 A1 has had to pay hotel expenses for thousands of stranded passengers and must reimburse foreign airlines for its passengers diverted to them. The mechanics claimed that a man-power shortage, not their slow down, was responsible for the delays and accused the E1 A1 management of misleading the public.
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