Workplace safety is a serious issue in Israel—this year alone, 65 workers have been killed in workplace accidents and numerous more injured. But workplaces have tools to protect employee safety. According to Shlomo Aloni, deputy director general of Israel’s Institute for Safety and Hygiene, safety committees are one of the most significant tools available for protecting workers—as well as a legal requirement in factories with more than 25 workers.
“The secret of these committees lies in their parity structure, which mandates equal representation of worker representatives familiar with the workplace and production floor issues, and management representatives, who have the authority to solve these issues by controlling the budget, work plans, and tasks,” Aloni told Davar.
Israel’s Workplace Supervision Organization Law mandates the establishment of such committees in every workplace defined as a factory and employing more than 25 workers. “This naturally includes industrial factories, but also agricultural enterprises, local authorities and even planning offices,” Aloni said. “Cellular companies and high-tech firms might be considered factories depending on the nature of their work. In my opinion, even workplaces not subject to the regulation should have a safety committee.”
Responsibility for establishing a safety committee rests with the employer, while workers elect their representatives. “In workplaces with labor unions, the union typically facilitates the election process, with at least one representative required to be a union member. In non-unionized workplaces, the Institute for Safety and Hygiene promotes elections among workers to select their representatives for the committee,” Aloni said.
Employers are required to notify the Ministry of Labor’s Safety and Health Administration and the Institute for Safety and Hygiene whenever a safety committee is appointed.
Safety committee members, both workers and managers, must complete a training program and meet at least eight times annually in addition to convening after any significant incidents, such as severe accidents or near-miss events like structural collapses, explosions, or overturns.
“At each meeting, the committee must examine the causes and circumstances of workplace accidents, draw lessons from them and formulate a plan to improve safety and prevent recurrence,” Aloni said. “Furthermore, in organizations with a formal safety management plan written by a certified safety officer, the committee must oversee its practical implementation for example, ensuring training programs are conducted, engineering inspections of facilities are performed, medical check-ups for employees are carried out and safety budgets are monitored. These are critical actions.”
The safety committee also has teeth. It can submit recommendations to the employer regarding measures to prevent accidents or improve safety and hygiene conditions, and if the employer rejects the recommendations, the Occupational Safety Administration can issue a directive requiring compliance. The committee can also impose sanctions on workers violating safety protocols, including withholding up to one week’s salary (to be reinvested in the safety committee), suspending them for up to two weeks, or in extreme cases, recommending their reassignment or dismissal.
Aloni emphasized that the Institute for Safety and Hygiene actively supports safety committees by participating in meetings, providing advisory services based on protocol reviews and offering training materials for committee members.
Employees whose workplace does not have a safety committee can anonymously contact the Institute for Safety and Hygiene via the call center of Kav LaOved, an Israeli organization dedicated to upholding the rights of disadvantaged workers.
“We will approach the workplace, inform them of their legal obligation to establish a safety committee, assist in setting one up, and, if necessary, refer the matter to a labor inspector,” Aloni Said. “Establishing a safety committee in a workplace is a legal obligation.”
Diana Baron, director of public policy at Kav LaOved, told Davar that Israeli workers are not informed enough about safety committees. “These committees serve as internal workplace gatekeepers for promoting safety and health. Beyond that, they represent one of the most significant manifestations of industrial democracy under Israeli law—empowering workers to influence decision-making processes,” she said.
Her involvement in safety committees began in 2022 after learning of a fatal accident at a poultry slaughterhouse where a worker was trapped in a machine. “When I discovered the factory was unionized, it raised many questions, prompting me to investigate,” she said. “Surprisingly, I found that the factory supposedly had a safety committee, but the union representative was not allowed to participate. This highlighted the need to raise awareness about the importance of this tool among employers and unions alike.”
Research from groups like that International Labor Organization has found that increased worker involvement in identifying and assessing workplace risks correlates with reduced accident rates, fewer injuries, and less absenteeism. “For example, a study from the European Union found that consulting workers on selecting protective equipment increased the likelihood they would use it. These findings are consistent across research,” Baron said.
Safety committees serve the workplace as well as the workers, since they reduce the human and financial losses associated with workplace accidents. But employers often view safety committees as restrictive and don’t see their benefit, Baron said.
“Although the legal obligation to establish safety committees rests with employers, I believe unions must proactively advocate for risk assessments and safety decisions in workplaces,” she said.
A study of 480 safety committees by the Institute for Safety and Hygiene revealed significant gaps. Many committees lacked structured annual work plans, mechanisms for communicating safety issues to employees, or trained safety trustees. About 50% did not conduct factory tours, and 40% did not monitor the implementation of their recommendations. “Active unions could significantly impact improving workplace safety by insisting on professional and effective safety committee operations,” Baron said.
The Workplace Supervision Organization Law was enacted in the 1950s and does not fully address the realities of today’s labor market, Baron explained. “When the law was passed, it reflected a classic industrial economy with long-term direct employment,” she said. “Over time, organized labor has weakened and phenomena like subcontracted workers and migrant labor, groups often unrepresented on safety committees, have grown.”
For example, in construction, Israel’s most dangerous industry, with over 35 annual fatalities, safety committees rarely include on-site workers who perform the most hazardous tasks. That fact is partly due to norms of subcontracting rather than direct employment. “This is troubling, and lawmakers might need to address it,” Baron said. “Even in unionized factories with safety committees, worker representatives must also consider marginalized employees, who often face the highest risks, ensuring their voices are heard.”
Tomer Reznik, deputy chair of the Histadrut and head of the industrial democracy department, described safety committees as fitting into a broader principle: workers must have a role in workplace management, not just in wage negotiations but in all decision-making processes.
“From our perspective, the divide between worker and workplace is an illusion,” Reznik told Davar. “As a labor organization, we aim to give workers influence over their lives at work. When it comes to safety, no issue warrants worker involvement more. It’s about protecting their lives.”
The Workplace Supervision Organization Law, requiring employers to establish parity-based safety committees with equal worker representation, is a vital platform for realizing this vision, he said. In recent months, the department has developed a work plan to promote awareness about safety committees and their importance.
“There’s significant lack of awareness among both employers and unions,” Reznik said. “We see a substantial opportunity for union-led action here, which we hope will reduce workplace accident rates in Israel while strengthening understanding of how worker participation can enhance decision-making by incorporating deeper perspectives from the production floor.”
This article was translated from Hebrew by Ronen Cohen.
