According to the website of the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF), “News that unnecessary reform in the ports of Israel has been delayed is being welcomed by the ITF. Plans were announced earlier this year to open two new ports in Ashdod and Haifa, but a panel of National Labor Court judges has now ruled that no action will go ahead until September 2013.
“It was ordered that the Israeli ITF-affiliated union representing port workers, Histadrut, will now have to be consulted by the government in a period of ‘intense negotiations in good faith’ over the potential impact of the two new ports on workers at the existing terminals. Histadrut previously accused the government of failing to deal with the ‘devastating repercussions on the existing ports as a result of the establishment of new ports’ and of threatening behaviour.”