Employees at TEVA Pharmaceuticals threatened to withhold medication from seriously ill Israelis on Tuesday night, saying they would block delivery of vital drugs for sicknesses such as cancer, jaundice and other conditions.
“We apologize to those who are ill,” protesting workers said in a statement, “but management is to blame.”
The threat was made after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon and two other government ministers failed in a meeting to convince TEVA CEO Kåre Schultz to lower the number of layoffs the company plans in Israel over the next two years.
At least 1,250 Israeli employees are projected to lose their jobs in 2018, with another 500 to be laid off in the following year. More than 14,000 of the company’s entire workforce are expected to be laid off worldwide.
Two of the company’s factories in Jerusalem are expected to close down.
Protesters are the TEVA tablet factory blocked traffic in the streets outside the building, burning tires to express their rage. At the TEVA inhaler factory, workers handcuffed themselves to the gate at the entrance to the facility, threatening to sleep inside the warehouses to prevent the medications from being delivered to pharmacies.
A spokesperson for the Histadrut Labor Union issued a statement shortly after the failed attempt by the prime minister to win concessions from Schultz for Israeli workers, saying “The Israeli government cannot give in to the demands of the director of TEVA and respond with weakness. The Histadrut will continue to fight to reduce the number of layoffs.”
The union already called a four-hour nationwide warning strike in solidarity with the TEVA employees earlier this week that threatened to paralyze Ben Gurion International Airport as well as other basic infrastructure around the Jewish State.