4,500 employees of the Tax Authority declared a labor dispute: “Our patience has run out”

4,500 of the 6,000 Tax Authority employees have declared a labor dispute with the Tax Authority management and are threatening to shut down the Tax Authority starting on May 19. In the notice on the labor dispute sent to the supervisor of labor relations at the Ministry of Labor and Welfare, it is claimed that the management of the Tax Authority is dragging its feet and acting in bad faith in the negotiations regarding the structural changes.

● The last obstacle has been removed: the High Court rejected the petitions against the retained earnings reform
● The change in the tax rates goes into effect: the employees who will benefit from an additional NIS 5,000 per year

In the workers’ letter, signed by the chairman of the State Employees’ Union of the new General Workers’ Union, Ofir Alkalai, it is claimed that the management of the Tax Authority, led by Shay Aharonovitch, makes unilateral decisions regarding the terms of employment of the employees at the Tax Authority, which affect the rights of the workers and their wages, and among other things: annexation of workers to other units, unilateral and immediate changes to work procedures, demand to fly workers out of work to Israel’s borders, not as part of their work routine that has been practiced for years, ignoring collective labor relations and despite the obvious consequences for the workers’ rights and conditions.

Another issue that is claimed not to be addressed by the Authority’s management is the demand of the workers’ representatives to find an adequate solution to the safety and security risks that the workers are exposed to in the course of their work, and even more so in light of the security reality in recent years.

In the message sent by the chairmen of the committees – Doron Sezo, the chairman of the national committee in the Customs and VAT Division and Oren Levy, the chairman of the national committee in the Income Tax and Real Estate Taxation Division – to the workers about the announced labor dispute, it is stated that “following countless letters and inquiries from the Histadrut and the workers’ representatives regarding issues that are not conducted lawfully, unilateral decisions, non-payment of due rights, inquiries on the subject Security and safety issues, changing work arrangements unilaterally, the lack of attention to letters and requests and dragging our feet in negotiations, while taking unilateral actions, we have no choice but to work together to exhaust the rights of tax authority employees.”

The chairmen also write that “from October 7 onwards, the workers are the first to join any national mission until this very day. We maintained functional continuity, we provided services to citizens, we left the families, we were annexed to units, and all so that the tax authority would continue providing services to the state and its citizens.”

According to the chairmen, the authority’s management rejected most of the references to them or completely ignored them, and in between, various issues were promoted unilaterally. In various issues that have consequences for the employees, the structural violations, the violation of the rights of the employees, the dragging of feet in the negotiation process and the promotion of unilateral moves, all of these led to the approval of a labor dispute in order to make it possible to announce in a clear voice – so far.”

The Tax Authority responded that “the management of the Tax Authority cherishes and appreciates its employees for their dedicated work in general, and in particular in recent years since the outbreak of the Iron Swords War, in which the Authority’s employees successfully faced difficult challenges. From this, the management worked tirelessly and achieved many achievements, this during a difficult budget period, among the achievements:
Salary agreement from the benefactors made in the civil service for the Authority’s employees in the professional and investigative field.
Obtaining a salary increase in the form of standbys for the customs employees, this for the interim period until the signing of a salary agreement with all the employees of the authority.
Hundreds of new standards were achieved and implemented in the Tax Authority, in the years 2024-2025, and also in 2026, hundreds of new standards will be implemented, this in the various departments of the authority.
Furthermore, the commissioner of wages together with the authority’s management are open to conducting intensive negotiations regarding obtaining a wage agreement for all the authority’s employees and expect that the Histadrut and the workers’ unions will contribute to this.”