After years of slogging tirelessly to encourage ethical practices by restaurant owners, Bema’aglei Tzedek is now monitoring employers’ adherence to labor laws.
By PEGGY CIDORBema’aglei Tzedek activists protesting 521(photo credit: Courtesy Bema’aglei Tzedek)
Until recently, Bema’aglei Tzedek (“Paths of Righteousness”) was linked with its social version of kashrut certification – the “tav hevrati,” a certificate granted to restaurants that are handicap-accessible and treat their workers ethically. While this is still on the social activism organization’s agenda, Bema’aglei Tzedek has now become involved in one of the major issues connected to lack of social justice in the country.Martin Vilar, who was until recently the closest assistant to Jerusalem city council member Rachel Azaria (Yerushalmim) and then an active member of the young leadership of the Labor party in Jerusalem, is now running the organization. Vilar, an outspoken member of the young secular activist groups in the city, says that for him, involvement with Bema’aglei Tzedek, promoting public awareness and improving working conditions for employees of private companies comes naturally.Too often, people who are employed in the same institution are separated by a harsh – albeit invisible – barrier. On one side are those hired and paid according to the standards required by law while, sometimes at the same desk, one can find an employee with the same qualifications yet employed under entirely different conditions, often in total contradiction to the country’s labor laws and lacking the social rights the state guarantees.This issue emerged in the public protest discourse of last summer and seems to have become one of the leading topics on the social protest agenda.The phenomenon of employment through private companies first appeared as a solution to the restrictions on hiring new employees by public institutions following the budget restrictions imposed by the state in the late 1980s. At first it was a convenient solution to bring in additional, extremely necessary human resources where the rules otherwise prevented it, and it was mostly in low-pay and low-tech jobs such as cleaning and security services. But it soon became a major trend in the job market, and private companies began popping up to hire people without professional qualifications or people, like new olim, who had qualifications but couldn’t use them because of a lack of Hebrew or other reasons.“Most of my work is on the ground – I meet workers, I reach out to them, I start with general explanations about their rights and what they are entitled, by the law, to obtain,” says Vilar. Most of the information comes from the Knesset Research and Information Center, according to which, says Vilar, “in 70 percent of the workplaces in the country, employment laws are being broken, while in the private companies it is the case all the time, everywhere – they all simply mistreat their employees.”Asked how he proceeds once he finds out about a specific company that is breaking the law, he says that the first step is to ask the employers to show him their payroll.“Some of the payrolls are obviously missing rubrics requested by the country’s employment law. In others, things are written in such a way that nobody, including experts in the matter, could understand what they really mean – and that, of course, is done on purpose.”In most cases, based on Bema’aglei Tzedek’s findings, the result of companies not following the law can be up to several thousand shekels being illegally withheld from workers.“These companies hire Arab residents from east Jerusalem, or new olim who cannot even read their payslips, so it’s so easy to hide their rights from them; In most cases these employees don’t even know what their rights are – in terms of extra hours, working on Shabbat or at night, or what they are entitled to if they are sick,” says Vilar.Bema’aglei Tzedek work closely with lawyers who are experts in employment law. In many cases the lawyers find out about the missing payments and initiate proceedings between the employees and their employers, and in some cases, if necessary, represent the workers in court.“But the worst part of this phenomenon” says Vilar, “is the fact that this is no longer just the case for unqualified workers, but the sad reality everywhere, and especially in the public sector – ministries, educational institutions, municipalities, hospitals – absolutely everywhere. Here in Jerusalem, in every school there are teachers employed – according to decent conditions – by the Education Ministry through the municipality, working side by side with teachers who are no less qualified but employed under really unfair conditions by private companies. It’s a disgrace.”Vilar admits that there are also cases in which the workers refuse to accept his help. “They are afraid it might get them into trouble with their employers – or someone within the company hints that this could lead to their being fired. Again, since they do not know their rights, initial contact is not easy.”Once the employees do agree to listen and to try to obtain their rights, things change rapidly. In fact, many of the activists who volunteer with the organization to reach out to their fellow employees are those who initially received help from Bema’aglei Tzedek.“Our concern for private company employees began quite a few years ago, before last summer’s protests put the issue at the top of the public agenda,” says Merav Dadiah, director of Bema’aglei Tzedek. “Shmuli Bing, one of the founders of the organization, reached out to youth, college students who worked during their vacation, and helped them receive their rights. From there, we began to pay attention to that entire sector – employees of private companies. We created ‘employment watchdogs’ through whom we initially helped two typical kinds of employees: cleaners and security guards at educational institutions. From there, we discovered over the years that this was becoming a much wider phenomenon in the country,” Dadiah says.According to Bema’aglei Tzedek, out of the 25% of Israelis who work and nevertheless live below the poverty line, almost 100% of them are employed by private companies. “I think this figure is indicative of the entire troubling story,” concludes Dadiah.
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