_a.jpg "Photo: Eli Elgarat")
Report: Employees without rights in Israel
Association for Civil Rights in Israel reveals harsh reality of labor market in Israel: 92 percent of employers investigated, choose to violate rights of their employees, new immigrants earn 30 percent less than veteran Israelis, chances of Arab academic to work in job befitting education level five times less than chances of Israeli counterpart, more and more adults fired because of their age
These are only some of the conclusions of a report put together by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel on the extent of employees' rights violations in Israel and the means by which employers bypass the letter of the law.
How do employers bypass the minimum wage law, for instance? One of the methods is to declare employees as "trainees" or "interns," thus they aren't entitled to wages. Another method is taking fines and deductions from the pay check. Even though this may be with the employee's pre-approval, it is illegal according to the law for wage protection.
Another law that is often violated is that of severance pay and the report lists a number of different, and often strange, means employees use not to pay severance.
Cell phone companies report to employer their whereabouts
In addition to violating the laws, there are other frequent violations that cannot be ascribed to any specific law, and dealing with them is more complex. These are usually violating the employee's privacy, dignity, or freedom of expression.
According to statistics, 38 percent (about 800,000 people) of employees in Israel work part time, while 145,000 of them are working part time because they couldn't find a full-time job and are categorized as working part time "against their will."
Women especially oppressed
The report asserts that women are especially discriminated against. Men's salaries are higher than women's by 23 percent on average. For example, among teenagers, teenage boys make 74 percent more than teenage girls.
Women's salaries are lower than men's even once they have obtained a high position at work, including management positions. According to Ministry of Industry, Trade, and Labor statistics, women managers make only 78 percent of what male managers earn.
ACRI also reported that work conditions for pregnant employees are on a downward trend. Firing a pregnant employee requires special permission from the Ministry of Industry, Trade, and Labor. According to ministry statistics, in 2000-2002, the number of requests to fire pregnant women skyrocketed. Simultaneously, the number of employers interested in firing women undergoing fertility treatments rose notably.
New immigrants work more, earn less
Wages of new immigrants is 30 percent lower than the average wages of Jewish citizens born in Israel. In addition, the number of new immigrants employed in professions with higher standing in Israeli society is half that of veteran Israelis.
Despite lower work standards and salary gaps, the rate of participation of new immigrants in the work force is higher than that of veteran Israelis. In 2000, the rate of work force participation of male immigrants stood at 93 percent, and of female immigrants, 89 percent. These statistics are much higher than the rate of participation in the work force of the general Israeli population, which is 75 percent.
Research done by Adva Center for equality and social justice in Israel shows that for many Ethiopian immigrants, minimum wage acts as a kind of glass ceiling. Generally speaking, Ethiopians' wages are lower than minimum wage since their employment tends to be characterized as "flexible" and partial.
Their rate of employment is about 10 percent lower than the employment rate of the general population. A third of Ethiopians are employed as unskilled laborers.
For Ethiopian immigrants, education does not act as a springboard into the Israeli labor market. According to the Adva Center's research, Ethiopian academics work mainly in projects dealing with the Ethiopian community, and this doesn't advance them in the general labor market.
Israeli hi-tech without Arabs
The rate of participation of Arabs in the Israeli job market is significantly lower than that of the Jewish population: 39 percent as opposed to 57 percent.
The report shows that Arab males leave the labor force much earlier than their Jewish counterparts. Thirty-seven percent of Arabs between the ages of 45 to 54 don't work, as opposed to only 13 percent of Jews of the same age.
Report statistics show that the conditions of those Arabs in the labor force are nothing to rave about. The chances of an Arab academic to find work befitting his level of education is five times lower than the chances of a Jewish academic with identical qualifications.
Yet, the state of Arabs in hi-tech is even worse. In 2006, the rate of Arabs in hi-tech was estimated at only 2.8 percent even though they represent 20 percent of the Israeli population.
Educated Arabs also suffer in academics. Only 80 Arab lecturers are currently employed in all of the country's colleges and universities – only 1 percent of all the lecturers in Israel.
Have you grown old? Go home
It was written in the report that older employees are fired with ease, many times to make room for young employees. Firing on the basis of age has become a phenomenon that is gaining momentum in recent years.
According to a human resource survey performed by the Central Bureau of Statistics, only 13 percent of older employees who lost their job quit by their own initiative. All the rest were fired. For the sake of comparison, in 1986, 67.1 percent of men between the ages of 60 to 64 worked, while 57.1 percent of those in the same age bracket worked in 2005.
In their report, ACRI blames Israeli society for the fact that age discrimination is so rooted, so much so that many employers don't even try to hide it.
Despite the discouraging statistics, only 19 out of 200 inspectors in the Ministry for Industry, Trade, and Labor are responsible for enforcing labor laws for more than 2.4 million employees in Israel.
It should be mentioned that the Ministry for Industry, Trade, and Labor initiated a program called Living with Dignity, during which 4,000 places of employment were investigated. That report found that 92 percent of the employers examined violated employee rights, 15 percent of them seriously.
