The deal was struck only hours after Histadrut labor federation leader Arnon Bar-David threatened that, absent a resolution to the labor dispute, additional public sector workers could go on strike.
Bar-David said, “We have taken a significant step to address the injustice but the real challenge is still ahead of us. The new agreement helps ensure the rights of a dedicated working community that works day and night to reach out to all people in need.”
During the open-ended labor strike by social workers there were no protection orders issued for children and youths in danger, no meetings of abortion committees, no respondents available to deal with inquiries from the elderly, no tending to domestic violence incidents, no allocation of minors to care homes, and no assessments of convicts or those under arrest.
One social work student caused an outcry when she posed topless on a statue of a menorah outside the Knesset on Tuesday during large anti-government protests in Jerusalem. The unnamed woman told Nir Hasson, a reporter from the Haaretz newspaper, that she was a social work student.
“Maybe now if I take off my shirt somebody will care about the social workers. It’s meant to change perceptions,” she said.
Knesset Speaker Yariv Levin called for her arrest for “desecrating state symbols.”
On Tuesday, the social workers’ union rejected an initial proposal by the Finance Ministry that included a salary increase of a few hundred shekels per month and a one-year protection program against the violence they face on the job.
On Tuesday morning, demonstrating social workers gathered in Tel Aviv’s central Rabin Square and then marched down Ibn Gvirol Street, a major thoroughfare in the city.
— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) July 21, 2020
The Ynet news site reported that last year the union found that 83 percent of social workers experienced violence at work. Thirty percent suffered physical violence and 30% endured threats to their lives or to the lives of their children.
Hermoni said earlier this month there were 1,000 positions open for social workers but that no one wanted those jobs because of “the workload involved, the violence and the low salaries.”