Abu Bluff turns down tax money as Israel sets off unpaid bills
'Moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud AbbasAbu Mazen has turned down tax revenues that were to be turned over by Israel because the Israeli government set off from the money amounts owed by the 'Palestinian Authority' for electricity and other utilities and for hospitalization.
Israel withheld the collected tax revenues beginning in January after
P.A. President Mahmoud Abbas signed requests in late December to join
the International Criminal Court and other international conventions as a
result of the failure of the United Nations Security Council to pass a
Palestinian statehood proposal.
The Palestinians are believed to owe millions of dollars to Israel
for utilities provided by Israel as well as for visits to Israeli
hospitals, Reuters reported.
Abbas rejected the returned funds saying Israel had deducted one-third of the money owed to them.
“We are returning the money. Either they give it to us in full or we
go to arbitration or to the (International Criminal) Court. We will not
accept anything else,” he said Sunday.
The P.A. said last week its public employees would receive 60 percent
of their salaries for the month of March, the Wafa Palestinian news and
information agency reported.
Israel has never signed the Rome Protocol and has never submitted to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. As a sovereign nation, it cannot be hauled into court without its consent. Good luck suing us there.
In an earlier post, I predicted that the Israel Electric Corporation (a 'government company') was bluffing about turning off the power to the 'Palestinian Authority.'
I was right.
Truly Kafkaesque given Netanyahu govt withholding tax revenue it's obligated to transfer to the Palestinian Authority pic.twitter.com/ztXOS751Fn
— Dylan Williams (@dylanotes) February 23, 2015
PS Netanyahu has been withholding tax revenue for a couple of months (since the 'Palestinians' applied to join the International Criminal Court). A NIS 2 billion debt takes years to accumulate. There's no connection between the debt and the taxes.
יו"ר דירקטוריון חברת חשמל יפתח רונטל: הרש"פ חייבת לנו 2 מיליארד ש"ח ומהיום בצהריים נתחיל לצמצם/להגביל את זרם החשמל לרש"פ
— Gal Berger גל ברגר (@galberger) February 23, 2015
For the Hebrew-impaired, the tweet above, from Israel Radio's Gal Berger, means the following:
Yiftach Rosental, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Israel Electric Corporation: The 'Palestinian Authority' owes us NIS 2 billion, and from this afternoon, we will start to limit the flow of electricity to the 'Palestinian Authority.'
Does anyone believe that this will really happen? If yes, does anyone believe it will last more than 24 hours? I don't believe it will happen at all, and if it happens, I don't believe it will last more than a very short time.
But it's long overdue. You and I couldn't get away without paying our electric bill for more than a month or two before they would cut us off completely with far less warning.
In retaliation for the 'Palestinians' joining the International Criminal Court, Israel has suspended the transfer of $127 million in tax money to the 'Palestinian Authority.' How long will it last? I'm betting about a week.
Israel froze the transfer of about half a billion shekels (127
million USD) to the Palestinian Authority (PA), a political source told Arutz Sheva Saturday night, in retaliation for the PA's official request to join the International Criminal Court (ICC).
He said the decision was made Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's
orders and constitutes the Israeli response to the PA's unilateral
moves.
"The funds for the month of December were to be transferred Friday,
but the government decided to freeze [the transfer] as part of the
response to the Palestinian move," the official said.
That number is about a third of what the 'Palestinians' owe the Israel Electric Corporation. Of course, that debt is being subsidized by the Israeli rate payer through higher electric rates.
"Gaza's sole power plant has stopped working due to Israeli shelling
last night, which damaged the steam generator and later hit the fuel
tanks which set them on fire," Fathi al-Sheikh Khalil told AFP.
An AFP reporter saw huge fires raging near the plant Tuesday
morning, noting that fire department vehicles were still unable to
reach the area.
The damage of the power plant exacerbated the heavy damage to
civilian infrastructure in Gaza already inflicted during the 22 days of
the Israeli offensive aimed at stamping out terrorist rocket fire and
destroying attack tunnels.
Besides the power plant, Gaza also purchases electricity from Israel,
but many of the supply lines have been badly damaged by the recent
fighting, Sheikh Khalil said.
"Five out of 10 of the Israeli electricity lines into the Gaza Strip
were also damaged because of Israeli shelling, and maintenance still
cannot reach the areas and fix them," he explained.
Israel blamed Hamas fire for damaging some of the supply lines. Two weeks ago, Israel said that a Hamas rocket hit the power line that supplies electricity to Khan Younis and Deir el-Balah.
It's not clear when Israel Electric Company workers will be able to
repair the system, but they are apparently in no rush to do so. Prime
Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has asked the IEC not to risk the lives of
its employees in trying to restore power to the affected sector in Gaza, an operation that could take hours.
One suggestion for action against Gaza that has come up numerous times in Israel – including from MKs – is cutting off electricity to Gaza, which Israel is still supplying.
The article also says that power to Gaza has been reduced by 90% and yet somehow they still have electricity 12 hours per day. Boo. Hoo.
Palestinian witnesses said Israeli tank fire hit the fuel depot of the Gaza Strip's only power plant on Tuesday, cutting electricity to Gaza City and many other parts of the Palestinian enclave of 1.8 million people.
A thick column of black smoke rose from the facility, which supplies the territory with two-thirds of its energy needs, and the fuel containers were in flames.
"The power plant is finished," said its director, Mohammed al-Sharif.
He said the local fire brigade was not equipped to extinguish the blaze.
An Israeli military spokeswoman had no immediate comment and said she was checking the report.
The plant had already been hit last week and was working at a reduced capacity of about 20 percent, allowing only a few hours of electricity a day for Gaza's residents.
Maybe they should have thought of that before they started shooting rockets and digging tunnels.
Video: 'Palestinians' from Ramallah cut off power to Israeli 'settlements'
Someone in the area will have to say whether they actually succeeded in cutting the power - I'm not there. But this was posted on the internet on Saturday.
You will recall that on Sunday, a Hamas rocket knocked out Gaza's power station, through which Israel supplies some 30% of the Strip's electricity. At the time, the government of Israel ordered the Israel Electric Corporation not to restore power.
Incredibly, on Monday, Israel Electric Corp. (with government approval) outfitted its workers with bulletproof vests and sent them out to repair the power station.
After a day without power, electricity was restored to
some 70,000 Gazans when the Israeli government gave the Israel Electric
Corp. the green light to repair a high-power line damaged by a rocket on
Saturday.
...
The IEC employees dispatched to repair the damage were
accompanied by Israel Defense Forces soldiers and outfitted with
bulletproof vests. They wore special helmets as well to minimize the
threat of shrapnel injuries.
Remember six years ago when Hamas got caught holding a cabinet meeting during a 'blackout' when it was broad daylight outside (look closely at the curtains)? Well, now much of Gaza really is plunged into darkness and it's their own doing. A 'Palestinian' rocket gone astray knocked out Gaza's power station on Sunday and Prime Minister Netanyahu has now ordered The Israel Electric Corporation (a government company) not to fix it.
Seventy thousand Gazans from Khan Younis and Deir el-Balah were in
the dark Sunday night after a Hamas rocket hit the power line that
supplies electricity to those places. It's not clear when Israel
Electric Company workers will be able to repair the system, but they are
apparently in no rush to do so. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has
asked the IEC not to risk the lives of its employees in trying to
restore power to the affected sector in Gaza, an operation that could
take hours.
As Operation Protective Edge enters its seventh day, many Israelis are demanding that the country take
more aggressive action against Hamas in order to put a halt to the
seemingly endless missile attacks from Gaza. One suggestion that has
come up numerous times – including from MKs and Ministers like Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon – is cutting off electricity to Gaza,which
Israel is still supplying. The Hamas missile, which hit one of the high
tension wires that move power from Israel to Gaza, apparently made that
a moot point, at least partially.
The Palestinian Authority currently owes the Israel Electric Company
NIS 1.5 billion ($525 million) in unpaid bills for electricity. An
examination of that debt by business daily Globes shows that the relative amount owed by Gaza was NIS 220 million ($62 million).
Last month, the IEC filed a petition with the High Court demanding to
be allowed to shut off electricity to the Palestinian Authority until
the debt was paid – or to allow the IEC to seize customs and aid
payments collected on behalf of the PA to pay off its debt. That case is
still pending.
Meanwhile, the IEC is still supplying electricity to Gaza, under orders from the government.
I've reported on this blog before regarding the massive amounts of trade with Iran by Germany in general, and by electronics giant Siemens in particular. Things are so bad that at one point, then-Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz proposed barring Israelis from investing in Siemens. It now turns out that some Israelis have made a different kind of investment in Siemens. Or rather, that Siemens has made an investment in them (Hat Tip: Sunlight).
The gag order was lifted today that the Israel Securities Authority
and Israel Police questioned under caution four men on suspicion of
involvement in receiving $16 million in bribes from Siemens AG (NYSE:
SI; XETRA: SIE) to rig the Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) (TASE: ELEC.B22)
tender for power station turbines. The four men are former Siemens
Israel Energy and Industry Division manager Oren Aharonson; Oakfield
Ltd. owner Shlomo Daniel,
Aharonson's brother-in-law; forex trader Anton
Mitchell Dalin, an associate of Aharonson; and Haim Bar-Nir, who served
as IEC planning division deputy manager unit at the time, and recently
left the company.
Former District Court Judge Dan Cohen is already serving a six-year
sentence in the case, for taking a NIS 4 million bribe from Siemens.
Aharonson was the state's witness against the judge.
Aharonson
and his associates are suspected of being the middlemen in transferring
Siemens' $16 million bribe to Bar-Nir and Dalin, through various foreign
bank accounts. Aharonson is also suspected of obstructing the
investigation and obstruction of justice by not handing the police
information about the bribe. Aharonson and Daniel are also suspected of
being beneficiaries of the bribe through commissions they took as its
facilitators.
The bribery case in Israel is part of a worldwide scandal at Siemens involving $1.4 billion in bribes to facilitate deals.
I've discussed what makes Israelis behave so selfishly here, among other places.
In any event, one cannot help but wonder whether there is a connection between money taken from Iran and money used to bribe Israel. Yes, Israel, because in case you've forgotten, Israel Electric Corporation is a government company.
After years of Israeli consumers being forced to subsidize 'Palestinian' consumption, the Israel Electric Corporation is finally going to sue the 'Palestinian Authority'a small 'Palestinian' company for billionsmillions of shekels in unpaid bills.
The IEC filed suit at the Jerusalem District Court on
Thursday against the Jerusalem District Electric Company for a total of
531 million shekels ($153 million/111 million euros), a company
statement said.
JDECO is a private company which purchases electricity from Israel
to supply to Palestinian Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem as well as the
Palestinian Authority (PA).
The IEC decided to sue after "intensive contact" with JDECO and PA officials in Ramallah failed to reach a breakthrough.
But alas, this is only about a third (my math is better than Arutz Sheva's) of the outstanding electric bill.
The Ramallah-based PA also owes money to the IEC. Both the PA and
JDECO ran up debts after failing to collect the full amount they are
owed by their own customers.
An energy market insider told AFP that the outstanding debt
of the JDECO and PA to the IEC currently stood at 1.5 billion shekels
($434 million/315 million euros) of which around two-thirds was owed by
JDECO. The lawsuit only accounts for around half of that sum.
Israel's finance ministry is offsetting the PA's outstanding debt to
the IEC by deducting funds from the monthly taxes it collects on behalf
of the PA.
But in the case of JDECO, Israel has no mechanism for deducting monies, meaning the debt has ballooned, the source told AFP, saying that cutting off the power was not politically feasible.
Until recently, talks were under way to reach a solution, but the PA
abruptly halted the negotiations after the signing of a unity deal with
Hamas, the source said.
When I don't pay my electric bill, the Electric Company threatens to cut off my power within 3-4 days after the bill was due. Is the 'Palestinian Authority' too big to fail?
'Moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud AbbasAbu Mazen is concerned that Israel will respond to his unilateral moves at the United nations by cutting off 'his' tax money.
Looking ahead to possible Israeli economic sanctions, ['Palestinian Foreign Minister' Riad al-] Malki said
Tuesday that at the Arab League session, Abbas would voice concern
Israel might again withhold tax revenues it transfers to the Palestinian
Authority.
Interim peace deals task Israel with collecting taxes
and customs duties for the PA amounting to around $100 million a month,
on goods imported into the Palestinian territories. Israel has previously frozen the payments during times of heightened security and diplomatic tensions.
Now why didn't we think of that... along with cutting off their water and electricity at least until their debts to our utilities are paid.
And watch how fast the Arab League runs the other way if anyone actually expects them to put up any money....
According to Kol Yisrael radio, these measures include a
suspension of high-level contacts between ministers and CEOs, and any
contacts with the PA will now be led by the Coordinator of Government
Activities in Judea and Samaria, Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai.
It was also decided to freeze the implementation of 3G cellular
technology in PA-assigned areas and stop the transfer into Gaza of
communications equipment belonging to the PA cellular phone company
Watania. Another punitive measure is a freeze on promotion master plans
for new communities in Area C.
Israel is looking into further sanctions on the PA, according to Kol Yisrael.
You have to wonder when we are going to stop providing them with water and electricity and when we are going to start withholding the VAT receipts (the latter could actually happen) to pay some of their debts to our government and utilities.
The new Palestinian conditions include Israeli recognition of the
pre-1967 lines as the future borders of a Palestinian state with east
Jerusalem as its capital and the release of 1,200 Palestinian prisoners,
the officials said.
The Palestinians are now demanding that Israel release three senior
prisoners: Marwan Barghouti, Ahmed Sa’adat and Fuad Shobaki.
The
new conditions also include a complete cessation of settlement
construction, PA sovereignty over Area C in the West Bank, a halt of
Israeli military operations in PA-controlled territories and “reunion”
permits for 15,000 Palestinians.
Other conditions include
reopening the border crossings and lifting the blockade on the Gaza
Strip, as well as the return of Palestinian gunmen who were deported to
the Gaza Strip and Europe after they seeking shelter in the Nativity
Church in Bethlehem.
The new conditions were announced during a meeting of Fatah leaders with Chief PLO Negotiator Saeb Erekat in Ramallah.
Israel Electric: The 'Palestinian Authority' is too big to fail
The 'Palestinian Authority' owes the State-owned Israel Electric Corporation a whopping NIS 1.4 billion (about $400 million at today's rates), which you and I and everyone else who pays an electric bill in Israel are covering. But the 'Palestinian Authority' - unlike Mrs. Cohen who can't pay her bill - isn't worried about its electricity being cut off. That's because Israel Electric Corporation has apparently decided that the 'Palestinian Authority' is too big to fail, and is therefore being offered better rates and more credit.
"The electric company hasn't threatened to cut off the PA from electric supply," said the senior official to Arabic news source Ma'an.
According to the official, the IEC offered the PA was to sign a new
agreement by which it would be given the status of a country, with an
accompanying reduced rate.
IEC Director Yiftah Ron-Tal on Tuesday spoke in the Knesset’s Finance
Committee, where he said that if IEC were privately owned, it would
have cut off the PA long ago.
"Despite the immense financial debt that we have accumulated, we are
obligated to continue to provide electricity to the PA. The State of
Israel owns our company and it has to make a decision on the matter. We
must collect this debt,” Ron-Tal added, noting that the PA has ignored
repeated requests to pay its debts.
The PA acquires 95% of its electricity in Judea and Samaria and 75% of its electricity in Gaza from Israel.
In response to Ron-Tal's appeals, Finance Committee head MK Nissan
Slomiansky (Jewish Home) said, "if the state does not assist the IEC in
collecting the debt from the PA, the Finance Committee will consider an
appeal to the High Court, so that [the court] obligates the state to
address the problem."
I don't know whether to laugh or to cry. Why would anyone think that the 'Supreme Court' - which is made up of Leftists - would issue such an order? Who would obey it? And even with the best of intentions, what makes anyone think that the government of Israel could collect a debt from the 'Palestinian Authority'?
Making the idea that the PA will come clean on its debts less likely
is the fact that it is in the midst of a financial crisis; as of last
July the entity owed $4.2 billion in internal and external debts.
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas signed a $1 billion energy deal
in Russia during January. Russian state news agency ITAR-TASS reported
that Russia's natural gas giant Gazprom intends to produce 30 billion
cubic meters of natural gas off the Gaza coast, in addition to talk of
an oil development project near Ramallah.
The only way to collect this debt is (a) to cut off the electricity until it is paid (unlikely because the 'international community' would go ballistic) and (b) to withhold the transfer payments that the government of Israel makes to the 'Palestinian Authority' (unlikely because the 'international community' would go ballistic).
#BDS_FAIL: 'Palestinians' first buyers of Israeli natural gas
The BDS'ers are seething. Israel's Leviathan natural gas well has entered into its first contract. And the contract is with... the 'Palestinians.'
The first buyer of natural gas from Israel’s largest gas field will be
the Palestine Power Generation Company, which will purchase some $1.2
billion-worth of gas over 20 years, one of the major partners in the
field announced on Sunday.
The Leviathan group will sell the [Palestine Power Generation Company] PPGC, which
supplies power to Palestinian areas in the West Bank, as much as 4.75
billion cubic meters of gas when the Leviathan reserve begins to yield
in 2016 or 2017, the Delek Group said in a statement.
The Delek conglomerate owns 45.34 percent of
the field, followed by the US-based Noble Energy with 39.66% and Ratio
Oil Exploration’s 15%. Leviathan’s estimated reserves – 537 billion
cubic meters – make it the largest offshore gas discovery in a decade.
The Palestinian company aims to build a $300
million power plant in the West Bank city of Jenin to produce
electricity from the gas, Reuters reported.
Given the 'Palestinians' track record on payments, maybe we shouldn't be so happy about this one....
The heads of the Israel Electric Corporation engineering department, who were responsible for some 200 IEC engineers spending the weekend in Eilat while power went out to thousands of people in and around Jerusalem, are being fired.
"We informed the heads of the engineering committee of our intention to
fire them from their positions in the company," [IEC Chairman Yiftach] Ron-Tal said.
Ron-Tal was addressing members of the Knesset Economic Affairs
Committee meeting, in order to provide a preliminary report of the IEC
operations that took place throughout the weekend's storm. In addition
to highlighting these activities, the IEC chairman stressed that
although the actions of the Eilat visitors would not be taken lightly,
their behaviors were not representative of the entire company.
"Let's not take a group of law- and order-breakers and consider them the norm," Ron-Tal said.
I know a lot of Israeli readers will have the same reaction that I had: This action will soon be undone due to protests from their union (one of the most powerful in the country) and the Histadrut General Labor Federation (think the AFL-CIO, the Teamsters and the Mob all rolled into one). Well, maybe not.
The chairman of the IEC's workers committee, Miko Tzarfati, slammed
the behavior of these employees in comparison to that of the 12,900
workers "who already for several days have not slept and are battling
for electricity."
"I have no doubt that significant discipline of
the management is necessary, and that this will be handled very
seriously," Tzarfati said.
Glad to see that both management and the workers' committee are showing civic responsibility. Maybe the next time, the IEC's engineers will do the same.
Gaza usually has three sources of electricity. Israel provides 125
megawatts of power directly through electric lines, the Gaza power plant
provides 80 MW and Egypt directly provides about 17 MW.
Since Egypt curtailed the tunnel trade to Gaza and Hamas refused to pay
market prices for fuel, allowing the power plant to shut down on
November 1, the amount of electric power available for Gaza went down
from about 222 MW to 142 MW. Now that amount has been further reduced by
another 12%, and Israel is now the only party providing power to Gaza.
The media has been silent about this. I wonder why.... But that hasn't stopped the usual suspects from blaming Israel anyway.
In other news, the 'Palestinian Authority' has asked the Israel Electric Company to forgive about half of its NIS 1.1 billion in debt, and to spread out payment of the other half over the next 20 years. The Israeli taxpayer is expected to pick up the costs.
But give them a 'state' and they'll start behaving like responsible children. Right....
This is rich: Hamas wants to buy electricity from Israel
While the world has been silent, Gaza is being besieged by Egypt. As a result, the Hamas terror organization is seeking to purchase electricity from Israel. Hamas already buys one third of its electricity from Israel.
Imad al-Daelis, economic adviser of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, said
that talks were underway to increase the volume of electricity Hamas
purchases from Israel, after 3 weeks of an Egyptian siege on the
terrorist state.
...
In an interview with Anadolu Agency, Daelis stated
that "[t]he agreement with the Israel Electric Company to supply
additional power will help solve the crisis and will need to use the
unused power plant due to lack of fuel needed to run it."
He said the Hamas government submitted its proposal in this regard
Israel's Electric Company through the private sector - and that an
agreement has been made - but this also requires the restoration of
local power grid at a cost of millions of dollars.
Egyptian politician Imad Hamdi, from the Egyptian Popular Front, has
criticized the move, calling Hamas hypocritical. Hamdi pointed out that
Hamas is guilty of using Israel's resources despite denying its very
existence, and stated that Hamas is not effective as a resistance
movement against Israel.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh's granddaughter was treated unsuccessfully at a Petach Tikva hospital this week.
I really wish these people would get straight in their minds whether or not they are boycotting us.
Israel Electric Company to become Sabbath observant?
It has long been the case that in communities that follow the rulings of Rabbi Avraham Yeshaya Karelitz (the Chazon Ish), inhabitants have private communal generators for the Sabbath rather than use electricity produced by the Israel Electric Company, whose employees are overwhelmingly Jewish. The Electric Company's unions balked at the notion of their employees - who are among the highest paid in the country at their regular salaries - being replaced by non-Jews, because work on the Sabbath draws triple pay.
Now, due to automation, there may no longer be a need for Israel Electric Company employees to work on the Sabbath. The Israel Electric Company may become Sabbath observant (Hat Tip: Aryeh Z).
The automation process has actually
been underway for several years, but new technology, such as the use of
smart meters, has enabled the company to speed up the process, to the
extent that Sabbath electricity generation could be fully automated as
soon as a year from now.
The automation process is being
supervised by several rabbinical organizations, such as the Tzomet
group, which examines the halachic implications of technological issues.
An IEC spokesperson said that
theoretically the automation process could be applied to the rest of the
week as well. However, the spokesperson said, that was not on the
agenda, so long as the IEC was still a government-controlled company,
with its primary interest not necessarily the profit motive, but
improving the lives of Israelis wherever possible.
Ah yes, that good old socialist ethos. You didn't expect your electric bill to go down (it's gone up 30% in the last year), did you?
If you're an Israeli, would you rather work at the Electric Company or at Intel? All the non-Israelis probably answered Intel, but Israelis know they'd rather work at the Electric Company, if only they could get in. Combine high salaries, free electricity (which powers everything in your house) and job security protected by the Histadrut (best described for you Americans as an alliance between the AFL-CIO, the Teamsters and the mob), and you have 'work conditions' that cannot be beat. Not even by Intel?
IEC and Intel seem like very different companies, but there
are also striking similarities: Both are very large - the IEC employs
nearly 13,000 workers, while Intel Israel has 9,000; both have offices
or installations around the country; both are established companies and
offer excellent employment terms; both try not to fire employees,
offering some certainty in a tumultuous job market.
But
Intel is a private company, and when it announced that it would not be
firing workers during the global financial crisis in 2009, it paid the
price out of its own pocket. IEC employees, on the other hand, have
their jobs protected thanks to collective wage agreements and aggressive
unions, which make it very hard for management to fire workers. Intel
is a profitable international firm that lives on innovation and sales;
the IEC is a local, government-owned company with a massive NIS 72
billion deficit, and some of that debt will be borne by the public due
to lack of choice, through higher power prices.
Intel
doesn't publish its salary data, but it's fair to assume that workers
are paid well. It also offers lots of attractive benefits, including
letting employees work from home one day a week, and a program that lets
new mothers return to work gradually.
Conditions
at the IEC, in comparison, make headlines. A report by the Finance
Ministry salary director from the beginning of the year reported that
the average wage there is NIS 30,000 a month, while managers average NIS
80,000. Add to this benefits like free electricity, handsome pensions
and job security, and it's clear why workers rank this company on top.
"So
what if we don't like that company?" said one high-tech worker who
wants to get hired at the IEC. "You can't buy food with love."
That
sentiment also applies to the Ashdod Port, which ranked 30 on the list.
The port has been making headlines itself lately due to repeated
strikes, rampant nepotism, near total union control and massive salaries
(navigators earn NIS 70,000 a month). Despite all this - or maybe
because of it - it shot up nine places from last year's ranking, placing
it well above companies including food manufacturer Osem (42) and
high-tech company Verint (46). The lesson is clear - it's fun to cluck
our tongues at aggressive unions, but it's even more fun to be protected
by them.
The
rankings were based on surveys with tens of thousands of workers and
corporate statistics for the 12 months that ended in March 2013. The
surveyors started with a sample of 2,000 employees, asking them what
they valued in a workplace. They then conducted a broader survey,
weighing the results against what workers said they valued in the
initial survey.
The
surveyors also conducted internal surveys at more than 60 companies, as
well as among university students and manpower company managers.
The surveys were conducted over the course of a year and in locations around the country.
Note that the article doesn't say which company won. Last year, it was Intel. This year?
But what does it say about our economy when two of the top three places to work are 'government companies' that provide astronomical salaries and ridiculous job security on the public dole? Welcome to the socialist paradise.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
