Ministry of Economy and Industry | Directorate General of Labor

ANNUAL SUMMARY REPORT 2021

Caregiving Rights Trustees Project

The Commissioner's Unit has identified the need to constitute a reliable professional contact with the caregiving bureaus regarding labor relations and laws in order to advance and safeguard the rights of foreign caregiving workers. The Unit launched the "Caregiving Rights Trustees" Project in which workers from different bureaus received training from the Unit to be able to serve as an initial reliable point of contact for foreignworkers, patients, and their colleagues at thebureau. The rights trustees at thebureauwill serve as an initial sourceof informationon issues of labor relations and laws, will be able to resolve conflicts professionally and efficiently, will be responsible for the connection and coordination with the Commissioner's Unit, and will serve as a direct address for the Commissioner's queries related to workers listed under their bureau. After successfully completing the training, each worker received an official certificate from the Unit. The training of the rights trustees took place over six different sessions. The first of these presented the Commissioner's Unit and its activity, defined the role of the rights trustees, and explained how to contend with and guide foreign workers in times of emergency such as the Covid pandemic and missile alerts. The second session surveyed the phenomenon of human trafficking in relation to foreign workers with the aim of giving the caregiving bureaus tools to identify and contendwith this problem. The third session expanded the rights trustees' knowledge of labor laws and rights of foreign workers in the field of caregiving. Among the issues addressed in this session were workers' salaries, work hours and rest days, medical insurance and sick leave, parallel employment with a caregiving company, dismissal, etc. The fourth session dealt with prevention of sexual harassment and the fifth session with the complexity involved in parallel employment with caregiving companies. Considering that there are bureaus around the country and due to the Covid pandemic, all the sessions were conducted via Zoom except the last session which was held at the Unit's office in Jerusalem. The final session summarized the issues discussed during the previous sessions and emphasized the goal, role, and importance of the rights trustees as a tool for aiding the exercising of the rights and obligations of foreign workers and their employers. The final session also included a lecture on mediation and creative ways of resolving conflicts aimed at providing the bureau employees with the tools for resolving conflicts between therapists and patients. For this project, the Commissioner's Unit created a designated website containing information about the Unit, the presentations delivered during the lectures, including the sessions' video clips and recordings, information about labor laws relating to foreign workers and other information on the role of rights trustees. The website also enables to chat with the Commissioner's Unit. Link to the Rights Trustees website

The project received positive feedback from the participants who emphasized that it provided them with significant information:

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