Guide for pregnant women this time too: rights and responsibilities at work

When to report pregnancy? Should you talk about pregnancy at an interview? In this article, we will briefly discuss the main protections that Israeli law provides to pregnant women.

In a series of articles that we will publish next week, we will briefly discuss the main points of protection that the Israeli law provides to pregnant women.

In the article on this week, I will consider the subject of the obligation to notify the employer of pregnancy:

Labor legislation of Israel 2014 is intended to protect working women during pregnancy and childbirth. Despite the ultimate goal, in practice protection is limited.

Many women are surprised by the partial roof provided by the law. For example: do not fire a pregnant employee – the ban can be circumvented, because the employer can request permission to fire a pregnant woman from the Ministry of Economy, and the Ministry of Economy in many cases even allows this, and the employee will be left without work and without the opportunity to find work.

Кроме того, an employer who is sometimes afraid to fire a pregnant employee can «make the employee’s life unbearable». For example: change her working conditions, transfer to a different position or to a different room. As a variant, he can “search for her” and monitor every hour and every absence, the purpose of which is to exhaust the work of a pregnant employee until her dismissal.

Although there are some regulations prohibiting harassment of a pregnant woman, the fight to prove that it is harassment, and not strict and legal labor requirements on the part of the worker, will take a lot of time, money and effort and will not always be successful. .

When there is an obligation to notify about pregnancy?

The employee must notify the employer of her pregnancy on the fifth month of pregnancy. In the Women’s Labor Law, there is no direct obligation to notify the employer of pregnancy, however, the law provides for overtime work, weekly rest and night work. Article 10 of the Women’s Labor Act stipulates that an employee who is in her fifth month of pregnancy must notify her employer of this. If she does this, she should not be used during weekly rest, overtime work or night work. The accepted legal interpretation of this question is that the employer must be notified within the fifth month that the employee is pregnant.

Is it better to report pregnancy immediately and before the due date?

Sometimes in the office they ask the question, isn’t it better to inform the employer in advance about the pregnancy, without thereby letting the supervisor find out about the pregnancy through a third party, then fire the employee and even claim that he didn’t know about the pregnancy at all and the dismissal was done without an attachment. Answer: Each case is individual. There are employers who, upon learning about pregnancy, rush to fire an employee, and vice versa, but it is important to understand that notification of pregnancy is not a insurance policy against dismissal. In any case, when the fact of pregnancy is not a secret at work, I recommend to inform the employer, thereby avoiding accusations of ignorance on his part.

Is it worth talking about pregnancy in an interview?

The National Labor Disputes Court recently awarded compensation in the amount of more than 100,000 shekels in favor of an employee who did not disclose her pregnancy at an interview and was fired about a month after starting work, as soon as her employer found out about the pregnancy that she hid from him. In this ruling, the court established a clasp to the approach previously used by the courts, according to which there is no obligation to inform the employer about pregnancy at the interview, except in cases where it is an unusual and extraordinary circumstance. Therefore, if it turns out that the employee is pregnant, the employer must “absorb” the related losses, future absenteeism due to tests and/or illness, and also the need to find a replacement for the period of maternity leave. And similarly. In the article on the next week, I will consider the topic of walking during pregnancy. For consultation, additional questions and in each individual case, you can contact the site system.

The author is attorney Tsur Yosef, who, among other things, deals with labor law and is the general prosecutor of the Debarot organization.