More than 1,000 workers of the giant Soltam arms and munitions factory at Yokneam in the Emek returned from an enforced five-week vacation Sunday and locked themselves and heads of the plant and its Histadrut Koor industrial complex owners inside the building.
The factory area was still closed and fenced off by Monday afternoon, with no sign of a break in the dispute on imminent dismissals.
The Histadrut’s central committee was scheduled to meet Monday night to discuss the standoff but demanded that the management “hostages” first be released.
The employes have been angered by a Koor decision to dismiss many of the workers in the wake of sharp reductions in military and civilian orders. Soltam has been a major producer of heavy military equipment for the army and repairer of tank and personnel carriers.
But cuts in the defense budget have led to the cancellation of many orders, and demand for the company’s civilian products has also fallen off.
Meanwhile, across the Carmel range, workers at the Rom Carmel factory on the outskirts of Haifa Monday continued their 10-day lock-in at the plant. They are protesting a decision by the Ordan Metal Works, which bought Rom Carmel some years ago, to dismiss many workers in a retrenchment move, also due to an empty order book.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
