LABOR : Israeli Social Workers’ Strike Has State Safety Net in Tatters

For six weeks, Israeli women have not been able, except in a few emergencies, to get the official approval required for abortions. Cases of suspected child abuse have gone largely uninvestigated. Judges have been unable to decide child custody in divorces. And the elderly have not been able to get home health care.

Israel’s extensive social safety net, in short, has all but disappeared with a strike by the country’s 9,500 social workers and the government’s refusal to pay the cost of restoring their services--a virtual doubling of their poverty-line salaries.

“Our job is to help people at the most difficult times of their lives, and we are not there,” said Nehama Feder, deputy director of social services at a Jerusalem hospital. She spoke with the clear pain of seeing the people she wants to help being hurt in the social workers’ struggle for a decent wage.

“For society, the line of defense that protects abused children and battered wives, that rehabilitates drug addicts, that comforts the victims of terrorism is gone.”

For those directly affected, the strike--in its 45th day as negotiators on both sides press for a settlement this weekend--has added greatly to their private traumas:

* A woman, 43, discovered in her 20th week of pregnancy that she was carrying a baby with Down’s syndrome and applied for an abortion. But no social worker was available for the panel that, under Israeli law, had to approve the operation and had to have a social worker on it.

* A 12-year-old girl telephoned her caseworker to complain that her father was sexually abusing her again, but all the social worker could do was call the girl’s school counselor. Normally, the social worker would interview the girl, bring in the police and obtain court orders to protect her.

* An elderly widower, recovering from a heart attack, has been kept in a Tel Aviv hospital for an additional month, not permitted by physicians to return home until he can have regular care there. The social workers who must authorize home care, and would do so routinely, are on strike.

Taken cumulatively, the social workers’ caseload could prove tragic if left unattended much longer.

Social workers regularly check on the well-being of about 1,600 children who have suffered abuse in their homes or who have been abandoned by their families. By law, only social workers can interview children in cases of domestic violence and sexual abuse. Social workers must make recommendations on all adoptions and child custody cases.

“This cries out to the heavens, (but) I have the feeling that no one cares,” said Yitzhak Kadman, general manager of the Israel Council for Children’s Welfare.

Ora Namir, minister of labor and social affairs and a social worker by profession, ordered 70 strikers back to work to deal with urgent cases, and the Cabinet has authorized her to bring 710 more back under emergency regulations.

“I can’t wait any longer and take responsibility for the damage being done to the needy,” Namir said, recounting how she had intervened personally in dozens of cases, some of which “could have ended in murder.”

The strikers’ grievance is low pay. A starting social worker is paid $623 a month--including a welfare supplement of more than $200 to bring the salary above Israel’s minimum wage of $500 a month. After 17 years, a social worker gets $900 a month. Israeli professionals with similar training in psychology or sociology earn about $335 more a month at most levels than do social workers.

Social workers fell behind in wages because of poor union leadership--and the fact that 87% of social workers are women, whose salaries are regarded as supplemental family income.

The social workers, who have been without a contract for 17 months, initially demanded an across-the-board pay increase to $965, more than doubling most salaries. The current demand is for $635 a month, effective immediately. The government is offering a raise to $535, but spread over nearly four years.

“The law has given us tremendous responsibility for individuals and for society,” said Esther Sapira, chief of a social work team in Jerusalem. “To do that, we must be paid decently.”

Times researcher Emily L. Hauser in Jerusalem contributed to this report.