Chair of the Maof Union, Attorney Gil Bar-Tal, sent a letter to the head of the Local Government Center, Haim Bibas, calling to open the salary agreement for education aides and to significantly improve their pay, with the aim of addressing the workforce crisis in the field. In his letter, he criticized the Local Government’s proposal to bring foreign workers to kindergartens in Israel.
“The shortage of education aides is worsening, as is evident from the statements of local authority leaders,” Bar-Tal wrote. “The initiative and idea recently promoted by the local government, to try to address the crisis by employing foreign workers and ‘importing’ education aides from abroad, only highlight the enormous scale of the crisis we have reached. This requires swift and significant action immediately, as it is inconceivable that early childhood education would be carried out by foreign workers.”
In his letter, Bar-Tal emphasized that in August 2023 a reform agreement was signed regarding the salaries of education aides, which, alongside a significant pay increase, aimed to enhance professionalism in the profession and to develop career advancement opportunities for education aides. However, Bar-Tal noted that in the two years since the agreement was signed, it has not succeeded in achieving all its goals, for example in the area of recruitment.
“The training program doesn’t even cover 20% of education aides”
According to Bar-Tal, “The training program, one of the highlights of the agreement which also included a significant salary component, is progressing very slowly. Trainings that could meet the demand to provide the courses, as required under the parties’ agreements, have not been launched. In practice, the training program, which only recently began operating, still does not cover even 20% of education aides.”
For these reasons, the budget allocated in the agreement for professional training has not been fully used. Bar-Tal noted that “the Local Government Center and the Ministry of Finance requested to shift part of the agreement’s funds toward the training component, but implementation has been slow in practice.”
He also said that the retention grants outlined in the agreement were applied inconsistently by the authorities, causing serious disputes with the union over how the agreement was being implemented. In practice, the budget for these grants was also underutilized. Bar-Tal cited this underuse of funds as one of the key reasons to reopen negotiations.
“We must act to prevent wage erosion”
Bar-Tal wrote that over the past two years, the salaries of education aides have effectively eroded more than expected, given the rising cost of living. “We must act to prevent this erosion through an indexation mechanism, as well as updating and increasing salaries.” He further added that experience gained since the signing of the agreement indicates that the number of vacation days for education aides should be increased in order to reduce their burnout and improve satisfaction and productivity.
Bar-Tal called on Bibas to enter negotiations for signing an improved agreement without waiting for the current agreement’s expiration. He noted that both parties, in his view, agree that the existing agreement does not sufficiently enhance the attractiveness of the education aide profession, nor does it adequately help reduce the shortage of education aides. “The urgency of the matter and the scale of the crisis make this necessary,” Bar-Tal wrote. “I am confident that we can work together to correct and improve the situation.”
