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Efrat Ben Amram Hanin, Vice President of Human Resources at Hanita Lens Factory: “We receive the compensation provided, but our losses are much greater”
The management and board of directors of the “Hanita Lenses” factory, located in Kibbutz Hanita, recently made a decision to move the factory to an alternative location, at the moment it is still unclear where the factory will move.
The “Hanita Lenses” factory produces intraocular lenses that are used in cataract surgery and employs about 100 workers, all of them residents of the Galilee. The local market is a small part of the factory’s activity, while the significant part relies on exports to 45 countries with which the factory works.
In the first weeks after October 7, the factory management still thought it was a short round after which they would return to normal, as the weeks went by, it became clear that the situation was more complex, the factory had difficulty meeting its commitments to the many orders and therefore they had to find an alternative, even if temporary.
And so, for several nights and under heavy security, some of the machines in the factory were moved to two sites, one in Nasher and the other in Yokneam.
Additional machines, which are also essential for production, remained parked, since they cannot be moved, and even these days, despite the shooting, a small number of workers continue to arrive at the factory under the cover of darkness, through side roads and with tight security, so as not to shut down production.
The frustration in the management of the factory is increasing as the days go by and mainly due to the uncertainty regarding the end of the fighting and the return to normality, therefore it was recently decided to look for an alternative location for the factory and move it to the new location as soon as possible.
Since all the workers are residents of the Galilee, the preference is to keep the factory in the north, but to move it away from the conflict line.
Efrat Ben Amram Hanin, Vice President of Human Resources at the Hanita Lens Factory said:
“It’s a very complex story, since 7/10 we’ve been in a rescue operation, we’ve rescued everything, it wasn’t possible to rescue everything because there are production systems and there are things that can only be produced in Hantia. We bring workers up late at night, we have amazing workers who understand the situation and are ready to come. We have a lot of workers who live in settlements and are evacuated and there are workers who refuse to evacuate. We go up through the Hanita forest in the dark, hire the service of a close guard who is available to them and direct them to a protected area.”
“We used the existing stocks, now we are juggling between 3 sites, we do not meet the demands and produce about 90%, we have a very high commitment to clinics and doctors, there is a war for survival here.”
“The demand abroad at the beginning even increased because our products are very much in demand, people abroad wanted to increase their stocks.”
“Everything works thanks to amazing people who have been working with us for many, many years, the biggest difficulty is in the operation of 3 sites, we receive the compensation provided but our losses are much greater.”
14/03/2024
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