Locked Garden: Why are the assistants on strike and what is expected in the coming days (Photo: ShutterStock)
The guerrilla strike of the assistants in the kindergartens is expanding.
Many parents throughout the country, among others in the localities of: Rehovot, Yavneh, Be'er Sheva, Binyamina, Givat Ada, and Ashdod, today had to stay at home or find an arrangement for the children, after the kindergarten assistants announced that they were not feeling well and did not come to work.
As a result, some authorities began to initiate countermeasures, in the Rosh Ha'Ain area, for example, several assistants were invited to investigate.
As first published in "Walla", the helpers' strike broke out last Thursday, contrary to the opinion of the General Histadrut, in which they are unionized, and without the knowledge of the local authorities that pay their wages.
Last week, the Histadrut began negotiating with the Treasury on raising the wages of the assistants, as a first step in the overall demand to raise the wages of the 700,000 workers in the public sector, close to 13.5%, as the teachers received in the wage agreement signed with them before the elections. This after since 2016, No other wage agreements were signed in the public sector.
Despite the request of the chairman of the Histadrut Ma'of, attorney Gil Bar-Tal, to wait a few days until receiving answers from the Treasury, the auxiliaries decided to take the extreme step, because they claim that they were promised that at the beginning of January their wages would rise and the Histadrut is not doing enough in this regard. On Tuesday they plan to demonstrate in front of the Histadrut House in Tel Aviv.
The assistants rely on the words of the
chairman of the Histadrut, Arnon Bar David
, at the municipal workers' conference held in early December 2022, when he said that one of the issues he intends to promote as part of the negotiations with the Treasury is a reform of the assistants' wages, which will bring their wages to NIS 7,500-7,6000 with incentives for persistence and absence.
Vala learned that the protest measures will also be joined today by aides defined as "medical"
"In the past year, we invested an order of magnitude of 120 million shekels in promoting the wages of assistants in kindergartens and schools," he said.
"These are large sums, but we are talking about a huge amount of workers - 50-60 thousand assistants. The modern wage agreement that we are seeking to promote will cost at least a billion shekels.
We already have understandings with the Treasury on this amount, and the new Minister of Finance will have to implement them in front of us because it is impossible to maintain the education system in Israel, when kindergarteners' wages are rising, but our workers are chopping trees and pumping water."
At the end of the week, more and more WhatsApp groups of angry assistants were opened under the title "If I don't have me, who do I have", in which there is a discussion about the poor salary conditions they receive.
Several of them said that they were invited to inquire at the municipality about their absence (as mentioned, in the Rosh Ha'Ain area).
Honey, we're not going to kindergarten today.
The helpers are "sick" (Photo: ShutterStock)
In the state of Tel Aviv they will study as usual
Compared to the rest of the country, the auxiliaries in Tel Aviv are suspending the sanctions, after being invited to a conversation with the director of the kindergarten department in the middle of next week and if there is no progress, they will consider their steps.
"We work with a base salary of NIS 1,900," says N., a kindergarten assistant in the central region, "from which the pension I receive is derived, and the rest are supplements. My salary ranges between 5,500 and 6,000 shekels per month, a starvation wage, certainly relative to the work I do.
In addition, everyone who started working since 2016, what we call the second generation, is obligated to work 22 days a year in special education. For each such day we receive an extra, but if we do not want to work another 22 days, they are deducted from our salary, while the older assistants No commitment in this, which is unacceptable.
"Our work is more abrasive than that of the kindergarten teacher. We receive the children, clean the kindergarten, the toilets, the kitchen, the yard, do pedagogical activities and meetings, take care of the children physically, including changing and cleaning feces, urine and vomit, and yes, we get sicker because of it. The only difference Between us and the kindergartners, there are days when we function as kindergartners for everything, because there are no substitute kindergartners.
"There are kindergartens for 35 unpaid children, with a kindergartner and one assistant, because there is no manpower because no one wants to be an assistant under these conditions.
When the children are in the yard, I organize and clean and there is only one pair of eyes on them, you don't see if one of them hits one of them, if someone has defecated.
This work is abrasive and Sisyphean and from seven thirty to two thirty there is no rest.
The Histadrut promised us that on the first of January that our base salary would increase significantly and the net salary would reach NIS 7,000 and nothing happened.
We are collapsing."
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"Our work is more abrasive than that of kindergarteners" (Photo: ShutterStock)
The Histadrut is trying to make order
The Chairman of the Histadrut Ma'of, Gil Bar-Tal
, wrote to the workers' committees in the local authorities: "You are asked to make it clear to the facts, that the independent and local initiatives of the assistants, which call for disrupting the work at this stage, cause damage to the negotiation process and are not in the Histadrut's opinion.
We have been conducting intensive negotiations for some time regarding the wage reform and improvement in the working conditions of the assistants.
"At the beginning of next week, and as long as there is no significant breakthrough in the negotiations in order to reach an agreement, the Histadrut will use all the means at its disposal in an organized manner, together with you, in order to Reaching an agreement that gives expression to the work and status of the education supporters in the local authorities."
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