Hadassah hospital nurses, admin staff to return to work
Management and workers reach deal overnight, paving way for staff to return to work.
The management at the cash-strapped Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem reached an agreement with its nursing and administration staff in the early hours of Wednesday, clearing the way for the staff to return to work after eight days of strikes.
Under the terms of the agreement, employees earning less than 15,000 shekels per month will not face a pay cut and will have their salary additions, such as car maintenance and on-call payments, returned. In addition, any summons for pre-dismissal hearings that had been sent to employees were frozen.
The hospital has been locked in battle with its medical and administration staff for some two weeks, after it failed to pay salaries for January. Doctors were the first to embark on industrial action, followed by the nurses and support staff. On Monday, dozens of employees demonstrated outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's official residence, calling on him to intervene.
Even before the final agreement was signed early Wednesday, staff from the Hadassah hospital campus at Ein Karem received text messages from workers' committee chairman Amnon Baruchian that "things were coming to a conclusion" and that "there is cause for celebration."
The staff responded with cries of joy and singing.
