ZIM has gone on strike again.

On April 16, the company’s CEO, Eli Glickman, suddenly resigned;

The following afternoon, approximately 900 employees at headquarters went on strike, bringing even port unloading operations to a halt and effectively paralyzing the company’s daily operations in Israel.

This strike is directly linked to Hapag-Lloyd’s acquisition of Zim.

Union President Oren Caspi said that Hapag-Lloyd is attempting to force hundreds of employees into early retirement, but there is no such provision in the current collective bargaining agreement.

Glickman has historically served as a rare “buffer” between labor and management.

During the last strike, he stepped in and, together with Hapag-Lloyd, negotiated with the union to extend the collective agreement by five years.

At the time, he even admitted to the union: “If the strike continues for a week or two, the company might not be able to survive.” Now that he’s gone, mutual trust between the two sides has rapidly collapsed.

In fact, this acquisition has been anything but smooth from the start. Hapag-Lloyd partnered with the Israeli private equity firm FIMI to devise a spin-off transaction structure that circumvented numerous obstacles.

Currently, both sides are continuing negotiations over the weekend, with Hapag-Lloyd also sending representatives to participate.

However, even if the shareholders give their approval and the proposal looks promising, as long as the union refuses to budge and government approvals are not secured, this deal will still fail to reach its conclusion.