Immediately after the formation of the government, the Minister of Finance announced that his first goal would be to produce a package deal in the economy, in order to create stability in labor relations for the duration of the government.
Announced and executed.
Already on his second day, he summoned the representatives of the employers, the Histadrut and the Ministry of Finance.
At this meeting, it was decided to open intensive negotiations, and indeed after the ups and downs, the package deal was signed last November.
For the first time, however, the package deal was not approved by the Knesset, in an extraordinary demonstration of irresponsibility, lack of statehood, and most importantly - a lack of understanding that responsible management of labor relations will contribute to workers and employers without consequences, harm to prices or centralization.
Hurt workers
The balanced deal was based on a number of significant principles: first, a definition of a moderate and fixed increase in wages over the next 4 years, instead of the unstable mechanism of calculating 47.5% of the average wage in the economy.
An increase in moderate levels of 4% -2% percent per year allows for a permanent improvement of the minimum wage without producing half a wage, and with them an increase in inflation, and is a healthy solution to what is required.
Second, applying flexible overtime - which is the calculation of working hours according to the monthly rather than daily quota, a step that allows the employee and employer flexibility appropriate to the modern world, where employees want to optimally balance their work day, and also employers according to work needs.
The third was to provide an additional vacation day for new employees, who work up to 5 years in the workplace, to increase the quota of their vacation days.
This deal was supposed to pass the Knesset's approval, but unlike in the past, MKs - mainly from the Labor Party and the joint list - decided that they understood better than the parties involved, and tried to reshape the package deal. , And as in the business world - the intervention of an external party in the transaction by agreement between the parties in many cases causes it to be broken.
In the misunderstanding of the MKs involved in the situation, and perhaps in the desire to gain publicity for measures in favor of the workers, all the agitators in the deal caused severe damage to the workers and also to the stability of the economy in a period of growing uncertainty.
Bury your head in the sand
The workers, who were supposed to receive a wage increase of almost 2% to the minimum wage last April, will have to wait without change in their wages until April 2023 - thus causing each of the wage earners based on the minimum wage annual damage of at least NIS 1,200.
According to the deal, the second tier would increase wages in April 2023 by NIS 5,500.
At the end of the day - the package deal was broken, the deal reached by the parties representing the beneficiaries and benefiting from it will not materialize, the stabilization required for the economy always, especially in an economic crisis like the one coming and going, was not achieved, and the weak workers were harmed.
But something equally important is broken - trust in organized labor, at least in its Histadrut form.
Labor laws were set decades ago, and towards an era of telework, automation, robotics and artificial intelligence they will have to change.
However, the Histadrut, like the Knesset members who seemingly have the best interests of the workers in mind, are burying their heads in the sand, trying to cut a short-term coupon and will ultimately harm the long-term workers.
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