There is no rest for Rami Levy. At the height of a criminal investigation against his company, Rami Levy Chain Stores Hashikma Marketing 2006 Ltd. (TASE:RMLI), for violating the privacy of its employees, and when allegations of failure to deal with complaints of sexual harassment in the chain are being examined, a petition has been filed a class action suit against the company for alleged systematic violation of employee rights.
A cleaning workers and cashier who worked at the Netivot branch of the Rami Levy chain last Thursday filed a request for approval of a NIS 127.5 million class action. The petition alleges that Rami Levy Chain Stores violated their rights and the rights of all the employees at the chain, among other things by denying the employees holiday payments and opening a pension fund for the employees only seven months after they began working at the chain, instead of from the first month. This was allegedly in violation of the collective agreements applying to the food marketing chains sector.
The employees filing the petition allege that they worked six days a week at the Rami Levy branch in the Noam Park industrial zone, near Netivot: one as a cleaning worker for 16 months, and the other as a cashier for eight months. The petition says that they resigned their positions in January 2016.
The petition states that even though a number of holidays fell during their work at the chain, including Rosh Hashanah, Sukkot, and Shavuot, they did not receive holiday payments, as required under the expansion order applying to the marking chains sector. According to this order, it is alleged, the Rami Levy chain should make holiday payments to its employees, in addition to vacation pay, as if they had worked on Rosh Hashanah (two days), Yom Kippur (one day), Sukkot and Shmini Atzeret (two days), Passover (two days) Shavuot (one day), and Independence Day (one day).
The class action petition indicates that in response to their employees queries in this this matter, the chain's personnel manager answered that the chain was paying its employees according to the general order applying in Israel, not the order applying to food marketing chains.
The petition requesting approval for a class action also alleges that the chain does not check whether the new employees beginning to work have pension insurance, and does not given them a notification form in accordance with the Notice to Employee Law (through which the employee notifies the employer of his previous pension insurance), thereby in effect denying them their right to pension accumulation from the first day of their employment.
In 2008, an expansion order for compulsory pension in Israel went into effect, imposing on all employers in Israel the duty to make provisions for their employees pensions (men over 21 and women over 20) until they reach compulsory pension age. Among other things, the order states that a new employee with some kind of pension insurance is entitled to provision for his pension from the first month of his work. An employee who was not insured is entitled to pension accumulation starting from his sixth month of employment.
According to the petition, however, the Rami Levy chain does not check whether its new employees already have pension insurance, and begins making provisions for their pension fund only after seven months, without enabling them to inform it that they already have pension insurance.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on March 6, 2016
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