International Campaign: Amdocs Must Recognize Workers’ Union

In April 2015, workers at Amdocs-Israel, the local branch of a large multi-national software firm, started to organize in the Histadrut – the General Federation of Labor in Israel – with the intention of forming an employees’ committee which would negotiate a collective agreement with company management.

Following the workers’ organization initiative, an aggressive anti-union campaign was undertaken by company management, arguing that unions aren’t suitable for the hi-tech sector, and which involved the creation of an “internal employees’ committee” as an ostensible alternative to the workers’ organization. The aim of the campaign was to get workers to cancel their membership in the Histadrut-led union and to thereby hinder Amdocs employees’ efforts to reach the number of members required by Israeli law in order to form an employees’ committee (1/3 of all the employees).

Amdocs Israel workers demonstrate outside the home of the company’s CEO, Eli Gelman, in Tel-Aviv.

Amdocs Israel workers demonstrate outside the home of the company’s CEO, Eli Gelman, in Tel-Aviv. (Photo: Amdocs’ Union)

Following these actions, the Histadrut filed a complaint with the labor courts in Israel, protesting the illegal intervention of Amdocs management in undermining its employees’ right to organize. In recent months, the court has handed down three separate decisions in which it ruled that the “internal employees’ committee” formed under the auspices of management is neither a union nor an employees’ organization, and therefore does not comply with the criteria for representing Amdocs-Israel employees.

Despite the malicious campaign of management, by October 2015 the employees organization of Amdocs-Israel reached the goal of 1/3 membership, at which point the Histadrut declared that henceforth it would formally be representing the employees of Amdocs-Israel. However, despite this success, for the past 6 months Amdocs management has refused to acknowledge the Histadrut as the employees’ representative and refuses to enter into negotiations with the labor federation.

You can help. Send a message to Amdocs: https://www.labourstartcampaigns.net/show_campaign.cgi?c=3047

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