On 9 November 2011, management of Pelephone Communications refused to recognise Histradut as the representative organisation of workers even though more than one third of the workers joined Histradut. Furthermore, the company used discriminatory tactics against trade union members. Workers were called individually to meet with management and were pressured to withdraw their union membership. Management also summoned several members of the organising committee to inquiry talks about all kinds of supposed “disciplinary breaches”. False allegations about the union were spread by management. Furthermore, division heads summoned workers to announce that the company had established an “employees committee” and encouraged workers to join this “union”.
On September 3, 2012 the Judge of the Tel Aviv District Labour Court, Ornit Agasi, ruled that Pelephone’s management threatened its workers and acted to prevent organising activities. She issued a temporary court order refraining Pelephone from acting to thwart organising activities through personal appeals to workers. Following the lack of dialogue, the continued union busting and workers’ rights violations, Histadrut submitted a petition to the highest Israeli labour court, the National Labour Court. The court ruled in favour of Histradut and ordered that “Pelephone will refrain from initiating personal meetings with employees, with groups of employees, regarding exercising the right of association; and that the company will not use the means of communication at its disposal and its access to employees, in spreading messages against the organising, through text messages to cellular phones or distributing letters to employees through e-mail”.