Pelephone CEO: Unionization has hit our financial results

Gil Sharon called on the employees to resume their hard work to repair the damage caused by the unionization battle in the past few months.

Pelephone Communications Ltd.CEO Gil Sharon warns that unionization of the mobile carrier’s workforce under the aegis of the Histadrut (General Federation of Labor in Israel) is harming its financial results. In a letter to employees, he said that the company had lost its business focus, and he called on the employees to resume their hard work to repair the damage caused by the unionization battle in the past few months.

“The company’s phenomenal success in recent years was partly due to the uniform and sweeping adoption of several managerial values, such as business focus, clear target-achieving orientation, and determination in uncompromising performance by both employees and managers. Regrettably, in recent weeks, we’ve lost our business focus and adherence to achieving results and targets. These have been replaced by conversations in the corridors and spending most of the day on matters unrelated to achieving the company’s targets and dealing with competition in the market.”

Sharon added, “I warn that I cannot express any position about an employee’s personal decision about joining a union, activity which can be carried out without disturbing work, but not during work. The holidays are now over, we must refocus on routine work and the competition.

“I will note that our business results have weakened in recent weeks due to the loss of focus and attention, and in a competitive market, our failure has been seized upon by our competitors. I call on each and every one of you, managers and employees alike, to again work hard on routine business activity. Focus on the strong competition, on improving the network, and improving customer service, because we have no other company. We must preserve our strongest asset, our customers, and can only do this by devoting all our attention to this.”

Pelephone’s workers committee said in response, “Gil Sharon is making blaming unionization for the company’s third and fourth quarter results. He is the man harming the company by not accepting the workers’ wish to unionize. We call on [Bezeq Israeli Telecommunication Co. Ltd. (TASE: BEZQ) chairman] Shaul Elovitch to intervene and this saga and recognize the union.”

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news – www.globes-online.com – on October 14, 2012

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