Working for the weekend

February 16, 2009 - 4:41 PM by Harry

The view from a building in Rechovot As we all know, everybody’s working for the weekend. And here in Israel, “the weekend” is a fluid concept. Most of us work on Sundays through Thursdays, with the weekend consisting of Friday and Saturday (the Jewish day of rest). Many offices and places of business are, however, open on Fridays, for at least a half day, which means that for many in the country, the weekend consists of one day. Many immigrants to Israel never fully get used to the schedule.

In the past, there have been efforts to change things, instituting a four- or five-day work week based on Sundays off, which would at least have the benefit of allowing Saturday nights to not be “school nights.” Debate in the Knesset has raged on the issue, with many arguing that Fridays make for the better standardized day off. Much of the opposition to shortening or otherwise tinkering with the work has been based on religious grounds, but trade groups and big business bodies have also expressed concern over the specter of diminished productivity.

But with the global economic crisis starting to be strongly felt in these parts, now it’s the businesses that are aiming to make their unavoidably lower output levels more affordable by lowering manpower costs. As a result, Haaretz reports, four-day work weeks, and corresponding cuts in worker benefits, are already being unilaterally imposed by many Israeli employers:

Hundreds of employees will have to get used to this new reality at Sapiens, Numonyx and Keter, as well as some hotels and other enterprises. The rationale is obvious: saving 20% of wage costs and operating costs on days when the firm is shut down. For workers, it means a 20% salary cut, and the “disappearance” of vacation days due to them by law, replaced by forced vacation days.

According to a lawyer interviewed by Haaretz, unless the employees complain, the companies are completely legitimate in their unilateral slashing of benefits, which extend beyond vacation days and include lowering deposits into schemes for pensions and stipends of various types. And are the workers complaining? In a climate where many feel fortunate to have jobs at all, not so much.

“In normal conditions I would have been angry,” [Rechovot-based Applied Materials engineer] Ami says, “but we recognize the reality. Just two months ago the company laid off 10% of its workforce, and luckily I survived that wave.”

Apparently, firms in the US have been taking similar measures since the economic fallout first took place in the fall, and the British government is considering going to a three-day week. Of course, over there, Sundays were days of rest to begin with.

Image of the view from a high-rise in Rechovot courtesy hofnik from Flickr under a Creative Commons license.

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