Imagine for a moment a medium-size workplace, with 20-60 employees. There are two toilets, one kitchenette, a single main open space with a few closed offices. In such a workplace, there is usually one woman cleaner, employed via an external contractor.
When this worker is sick although that doesn’t happen much, because the miserable wages and the fear of losing her job don’t allow her the luxury the contractor immediately sees to a replacement. Now imagine what would happen if this cleaner were employed directly at this workplace. Does it even occur to anyone that, for a week, no-one would clean the offices?
This example demonstrates that there is a place for contract work, and all those who talk about outlawing manpower contractors, “pimps” as they are derisively called, are strong on slogans, and very weak in understanding reality.
But anyone who thinks that this example also demonstrates that there is no place for direct employment of cleaners, or other workers now employed via contractors, is liable to be disappointed. That same medium-size workplace could certainly take a cleaner onto the permanent workforce, and, when she is sick or on vacation, the personnel or housekeeping manager calls a manpower agency that provides cleaning services that answer precisely this need: a temporary, immediate need, which is all that manpower contractors should have been doing, until someone became confused and turned temporary into permanent.
This is the message that the Histadrut has been trying to get across in the last few months: there is a place for contract work, there is a place for outsourcing, but not to the extent that we see today. In the past few days, Ofer Eini has been telling of one local authority that set up a subsidiary to the municipal corporation the original task of which was to organize events. “Very quickly, this company started to employ social workers, psychologists, and others, the common denominator between whom was the minimum wage.” The examples are many and varied, and frightening. The chances that your child will be a “contract teacher” or a “contract nurse” are higher than ever.
The Ministry of Finance has been arguing that the decision to allow the Histadrut to strike to demand a reduction in the phenomenon of contract workers means awarding the Histadrut a mandate to run the economy. The Federation of Chambers of Commerce, headed by Uriel Lynn, makes the same case. It petitioned the High Court of Justice with a claim that “it is impossible to dictate to an employer how to run his business.”
Really? Is raising the minimum wage not a dictate? Labor laws, legal precedents, and regulation in the area of employment, are a result of organized struggles by the Histadrut and others, alongside parliamentary campaigns by determined members of Knesset.
No employer has ever volunteered to adopt these restrictions, and the Ministry of Finance has always been on the side of the employers. In some cases, such as the raising of the minimum wage, even when the employers were in favor, the Ministry of Finance was against. That is, until the Histadrut threatened a strike of course. Therefore, the claim that the Histadrut seeks “to run the economy”, or that it is “a danger to democracy”, as per the petition to the High Court of Justice, is utter nonsense.
The heart of democracy is a system of checks and balances. Alongside freedom of occupation and the employer’s property rights, there is also the right of workers to unionize. The latter, through trades unions, have the right to exert pressure to tip the scales a little, when they are almost always weighted in favor of the employer.
The Scandinavian model according to the Finance Ministry
”The Ministry of Finance calls on the Histadrut to discuss the ‘Scandinavian model’, the essentials of which are a fair wage, welfare benefits, and strict enforcement to ensure workers’ rights” says a statement released by the ministry yesterday.
This is an impressive proposal, but the chairman of the Histadrut would do well to ask to discuss the Scandinavian model in its entirety, and not just the few, skewed parts selected by the Ministry of Finance. For example: almost unlimited right to strike, including solidarity strikes with other workplaces; a high (not just “fair”) starting salary; and an exceptional welfare safety net, including high unemployment benefit for up to four years; two-year maternity leave on full pay; tenure after six months, and dismissal only after a clarification process before a workers committee; full health services, including nursing and dental care; free state education from kindergarten to university; public housing; the list goes on.
Our guess is that the Ministry of Finance would prefer to turn all the contract workers in Israel into permanent employees, rather than agree to adopt the Scandinavian model. Media spin, on the other hand, is something it adopts very readily.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on February 8, 2012
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