The State Attorney's Office is pampered with an average salary of NIS 24,000 and special conditions.
Two-thirds of workers - in a labor dispute
Photography:
Eyal Margolin - Ginny
At least two-thirds of employees of government ministries are in a labor dispute - according to a new report by the Ministry of Finance on wages in the civil service and security bodies for 2019.
According to a report by the Wages Commissioner at the Ministry of Finance published yesterday, out of about 70,000 employees in government ministries, at least about 48,000 are in conflict - that is, can suspend their activities tomorrow due to their claims of harm to their employment conditions. , Those who are not in labor disputes, such as employees with a personal contract - join represented disputes, as well as smaller disputes at the departmental level that do not appear in the statistics but have the potential to harm the economy.
Conflicts do not end quickly, and according to the data, about half remain open for more than two years and 16% for more than three years.
"This ability of workers' organizations to unexpectedly declare a Bezeq strike due to a conflict that has remained open for years often deprives the employer of the possibility of preparing for a strike and dialogue between the parties and serves as a key tool for exerting pressure on the government," the finance report said.
The climaxes of the conflicts are employees of the Tax Authority, which as of 2019 (the year to which the report refers), almost all (95%) are in conflict. Among the employees of the Ministry of Health, only 8% are not in conflict, and the Enforcement Authority, Foreign Ministry and Ministry of Agriculture star. It has the lowest volume of conflicts (43%), but as stated in the report, even organizational measures of a small proportion of employees can in many cases disable vital activities of the firm - due to interdependence between roles.
Surprisingly, conflicting workers are not from the weaker sections of the public sector.
On the contrary, "the average wage of workers in conflict is higher than the average wage in the economy" - at a rate of about 20%, the Treasury states.
This salary is about NIS 16,000 a month - an increase of 2.2% compared to 2018.
The wage increase is also relevant to those who are in a "ranking conflict": a conflict of all those engaged in the profession with the public employer.
The data from the Ministry of Finance show that the attorneys in the civil service lead the list of salaries among government employees who are in a ranking dispute, with an average salary of more than NIS 24,000 per month.
The "jurists" category, which is in a collective agreement, occupies third place with more than 22,000 shekels per month.
Among them are foreign service personnel (23.1 thousand) and in places 4-5 are employees of the academy and administration.
The government is rewarding
The lives of government office workers are especially pampering, and they enjoy much better working conditions than required by law: fewer working hours, more vacation and sick days, entitlement to accrual of vacation days, vacation hours for parents in the summer months, and of course training, formation and training days: "Making the work in the civil service particularly rewarding," the Treasury admits.
At the same time, it turns out that almost a quarter of the reported hours among government ministry employees are not for actual work, but for vacation, illness, formation and training, reservists or civil service benefits.
The report covers other public sectors: In the government health system, the average wage was NIS 18,990 - the highest in the government sector. Along with employment security, work in the government health system is also characterized by high wages relative to the private sector - 81% of workers receive above average wages in the economy. As mentioned, the vast majority of them are in conflict.
The doctors lead the salary table by a considerable margin from other positions, with an average salary of about NIS 37,000 a month.
The veteran doctors earn five times as much as the younger ones - the biggest gap in the public sector.
The average salary of GPs who started working in 2010 increased by 123.6% during the decade from the time they took office.
The reforms to attract doctors to the periphery, which cost an estimated NIS 2 billion, have failed.
"These results raise a question mark over viability in relation to cost," the Treasury notes, offering alternative solutions for attracting physicians to the periphery.
In the government education system, the average salary reached NIS 13,688.
The number of jobs in the system increased by 23% and the number of employees increased by 25% - while the number of students increased by only 18%.
The number of students per teacher is one of the lowest in the OECD countries.
The reforms in the education system increased the salary of teachers in the entire education system by tens of percent and in 2019 it stood at about NIS 38.6 billion.
However, the Treasury notes, there has been no improvement in the skills of teaching staff and they are among the lowest
In OECD countries.
Israel leads the pay gap between veteran and young teachers among OECD countries, and teachers' salaries are not lower than in international comparisons - even though teaching staff in Israel work significantly fewer hours than their counterparts in Europe, averaging between 23% and 34% less.
According to the Ministry of Finance, the lack of overlap between the parents' vacation days and the vacation days in the education system leads to a loss of billions of shekels a year for the economy.
Retired millionaires
In the defense system, the amount of pension payments to an IDF retiree (on average) is NIS 7.72 million (not capitalized), an amount higher than that paid in other bodies. It should also be noted that IDF retirees receive an increase in their pension ("increases in the Chief of Staff"). Examination of the correctness of this payment is currently under discussion in the High Court.
The study shows that the mobility rates among public sector workers are lower than their rate in the private sector.
The average seniority in the current workplace of public sector workers is higher than that of private sector workers of all ages.
The probability that an employee from the public sector will change jobs is about 50% of the probability that an employee from the private sector with the same characteristics will change jobs.
Dismissals are three times more common in the private sector than in the public sector.
"The automatic increase in wages, regardless of employee performance, produces a sense of progress even without progress in labor productivity or performance," the report said.
The wage commissioner, Kobi Bar-Natan, said:
"The report shows that in the public sector there is limited employment flexibility, which is reflected in the low mobility of workers in relation to the private sector.
The corona crisis and the need to reduce the number of employees arriving at the workplace during it, while emphasizing certain services at the expense of others, have emphasized the great importance of providing greater employment flexibility to managements.
The crisis has created an important opportunity to promote long-term structural changes that will improve labor productivity and streamline public systems. "
