Cashiers, salespersons, office and service workers will be allowed to sit during work hours and their employers will have to provide them with chairs. This was the decision taken today (Wednesday) by the Knesset that unanimously passed the “right to work sitting down law”. The law proposed by the MKs Sheli Yechimovich (Labor), Marina Solodkin (Kadima), Gideon Saar (Likud) and Zevulon Orlev (Mafdal) states that employers will have to provide chairs for the cashiers, salespersons and service workers unless they can prove that “the job at hand cannot be carried out from a sitting position”. In addition, the chairs provided must have backrests for use during rest periods.

Employers violating the law will have to pay compensation of 20,000 Shekels without the employee having to prove damage, and up to 200,000 shekels if damage is proved. Workers as well as workers’ committees and worker rights NGOs will have the right to charge employers. Organizations of employers, the Histadrut, the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor all collaborated in formulating the law.

Yechimovich: “It is a pity we had to pass a law on what is a basic right of a worker, but it seems that many business networks have not yet absorbed the idea that forcing hard-working women to stand all day long is superfluous, difficult and harmful”, said Yechimovich. She noted that the law makes the employers, for the first time, responsible for the rights of contract workers for whom they also have to provide chairs.

This law was planned following a three-year long struggle with the management of the “Superpharm” chain, which refused to enable their cashiers to sit. Attorney Yuval Albashan, who brought the problem of the Superpharm cashiers, in particular, and the insulting working conditions of many other Israeli workers to the awareness of the public expressed satisfaction regarding the passing of the law, but also sadness. “There is no doubt that this is an important achievement. The highest sovereign institution in the country has forbidden workers to be transparent. On the other hand, the fact that there has to be a struggle and laws must be passed to force employers to regard workers as human beings and not as a resource is shameful. Laws cannot fix a damaged society.”

The Union of the Commerce Chambers and retail chains such as “Superpharm” lobbied members of parliament to prevent the law from passing, or at least to change part of its clauses, but their demands were rejected. The law will come into force within 60 days.