Shas’ Mayan HaChinuch HaTorani” educational network will reimburse the employees of the network for the daily Yom L’Yom newspaper, which it has collected subscription fees over the past seven years.

This was decided Monday morning 12 Shevat in a hearing held at the Labor Court in Tel Aviv, as part of a compromise agreement between Avishai Grintzeig, a former teacher in the Shas education network, who filed a class action suit in the name of thousands of past and present workers.

The settlement agreement between the parties has not yet received the validity of a ruling. The District Labor Court Judge, Dr. Ariella Gilzer-Katz, will discuss the compromise decision in about a month.

For many years the network required the employees to be subscribed to the party newspaper, and deducted the subscription fee of NIS 40 or more each month from their salary, in violation of the law. Following the filing of the class action, the chain declared that this procedure would cease.

As part of the agreement, the chain undertook to refund the subscription fee to any employee requesting his money back within 90 days.

The plaintiff will receive compensation in the amount of NIS 70,000, and his attorneys, attorney Kobi Refaeli and Adv. Shirley Reif of the law firm of Gluzman & Co. will receive NIS 150,000 in fees.

The announcement of the right to compensation will be published in the new Shas party newspaper HaDerech. Prosecutor Avishai Grintzeig: I am happy that at the end of the road I was privileged to be the mouth of thousands of workers whose money was stolen from them illegally.

“In addition to this, every employee who demands a return of his money will be able to do so, and this is a benefit of thousands of shekels for each employee of the educational network, and for many years many millions reached the hands of a private newspaper of a party instead of their original destination.”

The request to file a class action lawsuit was filed approximately 10 months ago. The lawsuit, filed by Avishai Grintzeig, through the attorneys Kobi Refaeli and Shirley Reif, claimed that every employee of the Shas educational network before he was hired was obliged to sign that he was interested in subscribing to the newspaper Yom L’Yom-Shas-affiliated newspaper.

According to the lawsuit, the network deducted the payment for the paper from the salaries of the workers, who were forced to pay their monthly money for a newspaper subscription, many of whom were not interested in receiving it. The amount of the claim was NIS 22,004,974.

The lawyers argued that this behavior is completely contrary to the language of the Wage Protection Law, which states that it is absolutely forbidden for an employer to deduct from the employee’s salary for a “third party” even if the employee has agreed in writing.

Chaim Biton, CEO of Mayan HaChinuch HaTorani, made the following statement after the lawsuit was filed: “The decision to compel the employees of the chain to subscribe a newspaper was made during the period of Shas Chairman Eli Yishai. When I joined the position about a year ago, I asked for a legal opinion and was told that such a directive is within the scope of doubt. Therefore, I ordered immediately to stop obliging the workers to purchase a newspaper subscription.”

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)