The workers committees at Oil Refineries in Haifa Bay and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries all over Israel are planning to fight managements’ decisions to fire 240 employees at Oil Refineries and 700-1,000 employees at Teva. On Monday Teva-Tech workers’ committee chairman Avraham Zohar threatened “to break the company”.

Teva-Tech workers’ committee chairman Avraham Zohar speaks during a workers assembly held on Monday (Photo: Histadrut – Negev Region)

“In Petah Tikva, there are employees with salaries from NIS 10,000 a month, and our CEO earns NIS 1.5 million a month; what is this? Everything is hallucinatory here,” Zohar told Galei Zahal. “Guys, wake up. They want to destroy the workers committee and turn us into slaves. We won’t let this happen. We’ll go all the way. We’ll break the company once and for all. We’re not slaves.” Zohar said, “At the last Rosh Hashana (New Year), our vice president came up on stage and said that the company was going to grow. I said at the time that the starvation wages at Teva-Tech could not continue. I declared a labor dispute, and to tell the truth, we can go on strike and shut the plant now. I waited for [Histadrut chairman] Ofer Eini.”

Teva and the Histadrut agreed to froze layoffs

Teva and the Histadrut labor federation agreed on Tuesday to delay the planned firing of some 800 Israeli employees at the pharmaceutical giant. The decision followed a public uproar over the decision to fire employees in Israel by a company that received some NIS 12 billion in tax breaks from the Israeli government over the past five years. Teva CEO Jeremy Levine and Histadrut boss Ofer Eini met Tuesday afternoon, and at the meeting’s end announced in a press conference that the layoffs were frozen for the time being. “We’ve reached agreement according to which there won’t be any firing of employees in Israel except by agreement” with labor unions, Eini said.

The public criticism that followed the announcement of the layoffs earlier this week focused on the tax breaks granted to Israel’s largest companies. According to a State Comptroller report publicized on Tuesday, the state has given large corporations, among them Teva, NIS 5-6 billion ($1.4-1.7 billion) in tax breaks annually in each of the last five years.

Meanwhile, in a video posted to his YouTube page (video is in Hebrew), neo-liberal Economy and Trade Minister Naftali Bennett was the lone voice arguing against the criticism of the tax breaks being offered to attract large companies to Israel. “Today we are competing for the hearts of the large corporations,” he explained in the video. “If we don’t offer the tax breaks, we won’t get that whole package,” he concluded. “And what will we get in [corporate] income tax then? Nothing.” “In recent days there have been a competition over who will criticize the giant companies in Israel more harshly over the tax benefits they have received. This assault on Teva will cause enormous damage,” said Bennett in the video he released. “I understand the implications of the recent developments, and it’s very easy to join the chorus of those criticizing Teva.”

State Comptroller Joseph Shapira on Tuesday rapped business tycoons in Israel, accusing them in his new report of taking advantage of tax loopholes to amass fortunes, to the detriment of ordinary Israelis. The comptroller has devoted his term in office to socioeconomic issues and to championing the rights of the downtrodden and weaker sectors of society.

Shapira, in a report handed to Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein on Tuesday, warned of the phenomenon of giant companies and tycoons hording their profits through a maze of loopholes. “It is not reasonable” for this to continue, Shapira said, while “portions of the population are struggling under the burden of taxes and the high cost of living.”

The report said that in general the Tax Authority has done a poor job of enforcing the law for those trying to avoid their taxes, especially in investigating fictitious accounts which violators use to dodge payments.  In other sections of the report that focus on the economy, Shapira reiterated that much of Israel’s wealth is in the hands of a few of monopolies. One quarter of companies listed in Israel belong to just 25 business groups, and the 10 largest business groups make up 30% of the market, putting it among the highest concentrations in the capitalist West. The report also found that despite laws meant to protect consumers, there was no clear address for consumers to turn to with complaints, a lack of enforcement, and ineffective deterrence for businesses not to break the law.

Related:   Teva Tech workers committee chairman: We’re ready for a long strike