Once again, not everyone is satisfied: the improved outline presented by the Finance Ministry on Tuesday has sparked a wave of criticism in the economy, with opposition Knesset members, contractors, industrialists, large companies, trading chains and others claiming that they have once again been abandoned.
President of the Manufacturers Association and Chairman of the Presidium of Employers and Businesses, Dr. Ron Tomer, explains in a conversation with Israel Hayom that in his view, the main problem with the outline is the abandonment of large businesses and partial payment of workers' salary expenses to businesses that are eligible for grants.
Ron Tomer, Chairman of the Manufacturers Association, Photo: Oren Ben Hakon
Tomer warns against putting hundreds of thousands of workers on unpaid leave and calls on the Ministry of Finance to adopt a new outline, which will also include sweeping wage compensation as was introduced in previous combat incidents, along with a flexible unpaid leave model that will maintain the relationship between employers and employees. According to him, the plan also does not provide a solution for hundreds of thousands of parents throughout the country, whose closure of the education systems prevented them from coming to work. He said they still did not understand that they had been abandoned without pay since 8 October.
A blow to the construction industry
"It's true that businesses with a sales turnover of more than NIS 400 million a year are large and well-established, but they, too, are hurt by the war," he says, "Take, for example, a business with a sales turnover of NIS 50 billion, which dropped by 1% in turnover and has 000,1 employees. It will not be able to continue employing 000,<> workers. In the current situation, his only solution is to send the workers on unpaid leave. And it's not corona unpaid leave, which was simple, not everyone will be entitled to unemployment benefits."
Regarding businesses that are eligible for grants, that is, up to a sales turnover of NIS 400 million a year, Tomer says: "The compensation for wages is not full but reaches up to 75% of the salary, meaning that the business has to complete 25% on its own in order to pay wages to the employee. If it's a closed business that doesn't work at all, what is it supposed to do? He will send the employees on unpaid leave as well. Why should he pay a worker salaries if he's not working?"
In conclusion, Tomer says, "The workers who will be placed on unpaid leave are in a much worse place. A flexible employment outline, as we formulated with Economy Minister Barkat, said that the employer can keep the employee with him, and each week he can decide whether he needs the employee or not. Here the story is different. When the worker is placed on unpaid leave, he also receives less and does not have all the social benefits, and even after that you may or may not find him."
New apartments under construction, photo: Dudu Greenspan
According to Raul Serogo, president of the Association of Contractors and Builders of the Land, the main problem with the plan lies in the non-adoption of a flexible unpaid leave model and the provision of only partial compensation for workers' wages, which in his estimation will lead to mass layoffs in the construction and infrastructure industry. Serugu also says that the criterion of damage to turnover does not at all fit the characteristics of the construction industry, where income for apartments is not necessarily received every month.
"Even though they have raised the compensation rate for wages to 75 per cent, contractors will still have to lay off workers. If employers lay off their employees and they sit at home, it will deepen the housing crisis."
Sarugu explains: "We are currently in the construction industry without Palestinian workers, and we work at 15-10% of regular activity, so this outline is not suitable for us. The construction industry has its own characteristics.
Raul Serugu, President of the Association of Contractors and Builders of the Land, Photo: PR
"Even a maximum state contribution of 75% of wages will not keep workers in construction companies. I expect the risk of layoffs of about 100,<> construction and infrastructure workers and tens of thousands of construction workers."
"Abandoned thousands of workers"
The Association of Trade Chains of the Association of Chambers of Commerce claims that the Finance Ministry "has decided to continue abandoning hundreds of thousands of workers, whose only sin is that they chose to work in the largest businesses in Israel.
"While we have succeeded in significantly amending the Finance Ministry's outline for small and medium-sized businesses, it still chooses to ignore the hundreds of thousands of workers employed in the largest companies in the economy, trade, industry and construction. A significant portion of these workers will be placed on unpaid leave and many of them will have nowhere to return to. Thousands of small businesses, which depend on large businesses for their livelihoods, will be hit by a secondary shockwave and may go bankrupt. We are warning of a tsunami of layoffs that will be an additional weight on the budget."
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