Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has decided against extending the pay increase for career IDF personnel to other arms of the security services. The background to the decision is the Ministry of Finance's warning that extending the pay increase would necessitate a deep across-the-board cut in government spending, since the state has no other means of meeting the cost of such an increase.
Netanyahu's decision was greeted with great satisfaction at the Ministry of Finance, which has been trying for some time to have the broader pay rise cancelled. Following Netanyahu's decision, the government will be asked at its forthcoming meeting to pass a resolution revoking the 2006 resolution awarding IDF career personnel a pay rise because of "lack of employment stability."
Ministry of Finance sources admitted today that the road to cancellation of the pay rise was still a long one. The government's decision will only open the way to the filing of a petition in the High Court of Justice against the precedent-setting ruling by the National Labor Court extending the pay rise to those serving in other security services.
The Ministry of Finance complained that police officers and their families were applying unprecedented pressure on officials in an attempt to impose payment of the unjustified pay increase. According to Ministry of Finance figures, extending the pay rise as demanded by the police, prison officers and Mossad and Israel Security Agency (ISA) pensioners would mean a one-time expense of NIS 7 billion and a permanent increase in salary costs of NIS 620 million annually. Ministry of Finance sources pointed out today that the police had received special pay increases in various arrangements amounting to some NIS 1 billion annually.
At issue is a pay increase of 7% that IDF career personnel received in a 2006 agreement in return for the IDF's consent to thousands of career army posts being cut. According to the Ministry of Finance, apparently through negligence in legal drafting, it was not stipulated at the time of the decision on the pay supplement that it would be limited to career IDF personnel only. ISA and Mossad pensioners and police and prison officers, whose pay is linked to the pay of IDF career personnel, took advantage of this lacuna to petition the District Labor Court for a ruling that they should receive the IDF pay supplement retroactively from 2006.
The District Labor Court ruled in favor of the petitioners, but the state appealed against the ruling to the National Labor Court. On June 25 this year, the National Labor Court accepted the position of the ISA and Mossad pensioners and dismissed the state's appeal. In a parallel hearing on the demands of the police and prison officers, the judges told the state that it must announce by September 6 whether it intended to appeal to the High Court of Justice against the ruling on the ISA and Mossad pensioners.
In discussions on the response to the court, Deputy Attorney General Raz Nizri told Ministry of Finance representatives that only a government decision would allow an appeal to the High Court of Justice against the Labor Court ruling, and that without such a decision an appeal would stand no chance.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on September 3, 2018
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