[:en]On Nov 16, the Workers Advice Center (WAC-MAAN) signed a collective agreement with the NGO Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), which employs 30 people.
The agreement includes a number of precedents:
A mechanism making worker participation in policy-related decisions compulsory; a mechanism for reducing wage inequalities which ensures that within a few years, wages among all the organization’s employees will be equal, and a reduction of the working week to 40 hours.
The agreement also includes an improvement to employment terms: an annual 3% wage increase (that will be calculated in proportional way to allow the reduction of wage inequalities), more holiday days, benefits for parents with children under the age of 9 and for workers who are also responsible for family members in need of nursing, and more.
PHR is one of Israel’s most prominent human rights organizations. It cares for all those whose access to the Israeli health services is blocked, including Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, refugees, migrant laborers and many others.
“We were happy to discover that a commitment to a humanistic agenda and solidarity continues to exist even regarding the NGO’s relationship with its employees,” said WAC-MAAN director Assaf Adiv. “The agreements anchored within this collective agreement show that the NGO sees its workers as partners, and not just in theory. The workers showed no less solidarity when the more senior staff and those who had been there longer agreed to give up wage increases for the sake of improving the wages of new employees and for the principle of reducing wage inequalities.”
“Thanks to patience, perseverance and cooperation between the partners to the agreement, we have reached a successful conclusion based on the principles formulated by the workers,” the workers’ committee noted. “The agreement will improve the employment terms of PHR workers and the organizational culture, and help realize the organization’s vision.”
Translation: Yonatan Preminger[:]
