More than half of the employees at the “Hod Amal” Geriatric Hospital in Ma’ale Adumim (massive urban settlement in area C east of Jerusalem) joined MAAN in September. The majority of them are residents of the Palestinian Authority. Although some of them have been working at the hospital for over five years, they are still employed through a labor subcontractor and not directly by the Hospital as the law requires. Most employees earn just minimum and face difficult working conditions and no opportunities for advancement.
On September 10, 2023, MAAN’s trade union organizer, Yoav Gal-Tamir, notified the company that the union had become the authorized representative union of the employees, after more than a third of the workers had joined. According to the law, the hospital’s management is now required to engage in negotiations with MAAN on a collective agreement. As of Sep. 17, 41 out of 70 employees already signed the union forms.
Ahmed Jahalin, one of the organizers, stated: “MAAN is a workers’ union that is unique in its assistance to Palestinian workers. The right to unionize is guaranteed by Israeli labor law. Therefore, we did not hesitate to join MAAN to improve our working conditions.”
The employees main demand is to be employed directly by the hospital, as many of them are employed by a labor subcontractor. Labor law mandates that after 9 months of employment through a labor subcontractor employees should join the payroll of the company they work for. The workers have repeatedly approached the hospital’s management with this demand but due to disagreements with the contractor regarding compensation payments, the hospital rejected their request. Additionally, their requests for increased wages have gone unanswered, and most of them earn just the minimum wage. Furthermore, they demand that in case of workplace accidents, they be treated in Israeli hospitals and not sent to Palestinian Authority hospitals.
Currently the union and the employees are waiting to hear the response of the Hospital management to the organizing drive.
