For social workers, striking as if there wasn’t COVID-19

“The most aggressive virus against Israel’s social services is the Budget Division," said The Union of Social Workers.

By LINDA GRADSTEIN
A man carries his shopping bags and wears a face mask in a street in Ashkelon while Israel tightened a national stay-at-home policy following the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Ashkelon, Israel March 20, 2020. (photo credit: AMIR COHEN/REUTERS)
A man carries his shopping bags and wears a face mask in a street in Ashkelon while Israel tightened a national stay-at-home policy following the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Ashkelon, Israel March 20, 2020.
(photo credit: AMIR COHEN/REUTERS)
Noa Grinboim came from Netanya to Jerusalem this week to join a demonstration of more than 1,000 social workers who have been on strike for the past 10 days. She carried a handwritten sign that said, “My son has a summer job in an ice cream store and makes more than I do.”
The sign continued with “#We are choking.”
She works at a center to prevent domestic violence, which has skyrocketed during the pandemic.
“A lot more people are turning to us because they are just exploding between being stuck at home and the economic pressure,” she said. “We were trying to find creative ways to help people and had started a lot of new therapy groups. It’s hard for me that we’re striking, but we can’t continue like this.”
Social work has always been a low-paying profession, but many of those at the demonstration said their salaries are embarrassingly low, and they are overloaded with cases to the point that they are unable to function. The Union of Social Workers said 5,000 cases were opened in June, a significant increase over previous months.
Merav Ben-Porat Haviv, who works in a health fund in Jerusalem, says that with a master’s degree and 11 years of experience, the government has to add to her salary for her to even reach minimum wage.
“It really lowers my self-image,” she said. “You finish a month and you feel good about the work you did, and then you open your salary slip and you say, ‘oy.’ The salary doesn’t reflect our training or our job performance.”
She said that during the past few months of the pandemic, she felt like she was neglecting her young children to do her job. She spent hours each day on the phone with new clients, including aiding many who had never needed financial or emotional help before.
The strike means that an estimated 1.5 million people are not able to get the social services they need even more during the time of the pandemic. Social workers say they empathize but say the only way to make change is to go on strike. Teachers and doctors have held similar strikes, and one teachers’ strike in 2007 lasted for 55 days.
Labor, Social Affairs and Social Services Minister Itzik Shmuli says he is sympathetic to the cause but demonstrators say he has so far not succeeded in helping in a concrete way. He was one of the leaders of the 2011 economic protest against rising prices – a role that led to his involvement in politics.
“The minister is doing everything he can to bring the two sides to an agreement that will allow the social workers to go back to work,” spokesman Gil Horev said. “There is a lot of need for them, especially in this time and we hope the two sides will come to an agreement as soon as possible.”
However, Finance Minister Israel Katz seems less sympathetic to their demands.
“Talking today about raising wages anywhere in the public sector is irrelevant,” the head of the Budget Division at the Finance Ministry said.
Shmuli responded in support of the social workers, tweeting about social workers that they “are on the ones on the front line, preventing the next tragedy. If this system collapses amid the second coronavirus wave, there will be no going back.”
The Union of Social Workers also responded: “The most aggressive virus against Israel’s social services is the Budget Division... We call on the prime minister and the finance minister to demand that the head of the Budget Division withdraw his detached and insulting statements aimed at the social workers.”
It is also not just the salary – it is the growing number of cases each social worker is expected to handle. Many say their caseloads have doubled since the beginning of the pandemic and the resulting social problems.
 Social workers say they are often expected to handle hundreds of cases simultaneously, meaning they often barely know their clients.
PIPPA DERFNER, 63, originally from South Africa, has worked with the elderly in south Tel Aviv for decades. She says the growing workload and the low salary contributed to her decision to retire in a few months. “I just can’t cope with the responsibility any more.”
Many social workers say they also don’t feel safe at work. Their union said 80% of social workers had experienced violence from clients, with a third reporting physical attacks.
“There are at least 1,000 positions all over the country that are not filled now,” she said. “We simply can’t deal with the workload.”
She said that many years ago a man, dressed in a nice suit, showed up at her office with a hammer in his bag and told her, “I want to hit you over the head.”
“I was scared for my life,” she said.
One of her colleagues called the police, who responded quickly. Today her office has a guard at the entrance, paid for by the Tel Aviv Municipality.
The coronavirus has definitely made the situation worse.
“A lot of older people are suffering from extreme loneliness,” she said. “I organize all kinds of groups but they can’t go to their activities and are in a bad mental state.”
She said they also can’t do home visits because of COVID-19, and she is spending much of her time trying to arrange for food packages for people who never needed financial support in the past.
She works in Tel Aviv’s low-income Hatikva neighborhood. Many of her clients do not have computers, which makes it harder for them to fill out forms or apply for aid.
“We also see all these regular middle-class families who are literally without anything,” she said. “It’s a whole new ball game, and we simply can’t deal with it.”
Back at the demonstration, the social workers blew whistles, banged on pots and chanted hoping to get Katz’s attention. Now, nurses are also threatening to strike, which could intensify the crisis that many of the most vulnerable are currently facing.


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