Mr. Shraga Brosh president of the Manufacturers Association warned last week that should port workers decide to resume strike actions, more than 50 firms would re-locate their production facilities overseas.
Brosh added that the majority of the firms would come from the plastic, Rubber, metals, furniture, textile and paper sectors.
Brosh added that he supported reform of the port authority, but not at any price. "Not if that price includes a ports strike, and the devastation of Israeli industry and exports, and especially when industry is always the only group to pay the price of a strike, never the government".
Meanwhile workers at the three state-owned ports of Eilat, Ashdod and Haifa made it clear last week they strongly oppose to the government's planned reforms of the sector. According to the Port Reform Law, passed in the Knesset last year, the three ports will become independent, and therefore competitive units and will eventually be sold off to the private sector.
Brosh called upon the government the port workers union to sit together until white smoke comes out and agreement reached.
The president of the Federation of Israel Chambers of Commerce, Uriel Lynn, warned last week that the government should already be preparing for the next strike at the country's sea ports.
"The experience of 2003 and 2004 has proved that every time there was a strike at the ports, it hit Israel's foreign trade hard. There was no suitable answer to the problem of being strangled by the ports," Lynn said.
