About 600 employees at BTL, a blade-technology plant in Nahariya, are set to lose their jobs within weeks, with all layoffs expected to be completed by August. Many of the workers have spent more than 30 years at the factory, and most are in their 50s or older, leaving them worried they will not find new work or be able to support their families.
The factory, founded in 1968 by the late industrialist Stef Wertheimer, is the last industrial plant remaining inside Nahariya. After the story was reported by ynet and Yedioth Ahronoth, Vladimir Beliak of Yesh Atid, the opposition coordinator on the Knesset Finance Committee, asked committee chair Hanoch Milwidsky of Likud to hold an urgent debate on the issue.
Workers gathered outside the plant on Monday and called on the Economy Ministry and other state bodies to intervene quickly and create stable employment alternatives in the northern border area. Saif Mahmad, 56, from Yanuh-Jat, who has worked there for 29 years, said the closure was the hardest event of his life. He recalled telling Economy Minister Nir Barkat during a visit after the closure plans were announced in December 2022 that he had nowhere to go at his age, and said Barkat had promised that everything would be fine.
Rukan Said, head of the workers' committee, said the company is providing benefits under a retirement agreement reached through the Histadrut, including a job fair next month, tax advice services and enhanced severance pay agreed in August 2023. But he said the main failure is the state’s, arguing that government institutions have not created alternative employment anchors in the area, nine kilometers from the Lebanon border, and asking, “Where is the government?” He warned that 600 households could now face unemployment and that many older workers will struggle to get hired elsewhere. The current dismissal notices complete a slow shutdown that began in February 2022, when Pratt & Whitney first announced plans to move production lines to the United States.
