Israel Agrees to Double Pay of Social Workers

With its whole system of social services on the point of collapse, the Israeli government agreed Sunday to raise the pay of its 9,500 striking social workers by an average of $550 a month, almost doubling the salaries of three-quarters of them.

Eli Ben-Gara, secretary general of the Israel Social Workers Union, said the 46-day strike had wrought “a very significant revolution” in forcing the government to rethink its spending priorities and treat social workers once again as professionals.

The strike had closed shelters for battered wives, shut down drug rehabilitation programs, kept patients otherwise ready for release in mental hospitals and left runaway children in the streets. Abortions, adoptions and divorces, all of which must involve social workers here, were held up.

“I think the social workers deserved (the raise) because they really work on the front lines of distress,” said Shalom Granit, the government’s chief wage negotiator. “The fear is always what will others say . . . because everyone has a reason on why they deserve a significant raise in pay.”

Under the old salary scale, starting social workers were paid $625 a month, including a supplement to bring them above the legal minimum wage; a veteran with 17 years experience was paid $900 a month.

The social workers had originally demanded across-the-board raises of $965 a month, and the government offered 18% over four years.