[:en]On Tuesday 12.7, the truck drivers of Movilei Dror Company were on a one day strike. The striking drivers staged a picket in two logistic centers of the company, in Maman Lod and in Migdal HaEmek.
In the last two months, the company has one-sidedly decreased the drivers’ wages in sums up to a thousand NIS per driver, and as of 11.7 not all of the drivers have received June’s paycheck (according to the Israeli law salaries should be paid monthly and no later than the 9th of the month). The striking drivers have two simple demands: cancel the one-sided salary cuts that occur while the company is negotiating with WAC MAAN workers’ union and the workers’ committee, and pay in time.
Moshe Mizrahi, the head of the workers’ committee, said on the subject: “Drivers who haven’t received their paycheck were angry, and drivers who have – were furious. A company which respects itself and its workers cannot behave in such manner. They have crossed the line.” The root of these salary cuts in Moviley Dror’s refusal to pay according to the law. Pressured by WAC MAAN workers’ union and the workers’ representatives, the company was compelled to apply last April the Extension Order in the transport industry, and increase the social contributions, which were not payed according to the law until then. In order to convey a message to the drivers, that he who will demand to be payed according to the law will suffer consequences, the company has applied the extension order in a manipulative and wrong fashion, and harmed the drivers’ net salaries.
Assaf Adiv, WAC MAAN’s National Director said: “20 years Movilei Dror company has paid its 160 drivers ridiculous sums of money for their meals, has contributed to their pension according to minimal wage, and hasn’t paid the drivers the professional addition they deserve. For more than 9 moths the company is negotiating dishonestly, and continues to refuse to discuss increases in workers’ salaries and compensation for their former debts.
It should be pointed out that WAC MAAN has put forward demands for an increase of the drivers’ salaries, similar to the bar set to the bus drivers in Israel – 39 NIS per hour. But the company refuses to discuss this demand and reduces the negotiations to the issue of implementing the Extension Order only – and even this in a partial and manipulative manner.
The union and the workers’ committee are determined to go on with their struggle until the rights of the truck drivers are respected.[:]
