 For the last 2 months the Israeli Social Workers Union has demanded that the Finance Ministry fund an additional 1,000 social work positions in the local municipalities and the Ministry of Social Affairs and Social Welfare. Social workers in the municipal social service centers are struggling to maintain professional standards which is impossible when they are working with caseloads that number in the hundreds.
The System
Israeli social services are centralized and funded mainly by the national government. Over the years, the Knesset (parliament) has enacted advanced social legislation, but the “bean counters” in the finance ministry have not funded additional positions that are necessary to implement those laws. This gives the Finance Ministry ultimate authority over the level of social services available and the level of professional standards available to provide those services.
All the major social services are provided through the local government in coordination with the Ministry of Social Affairs and Social Welfare.
The Problem
For the past 20 years the situation has been deteriorating, but about 5 years ago, the government decided on a huge budget reduction that devastated health, education and social services. For example, income transfer payments to the handicapped and the elderly were slashed by about 20% driving many people below the poverty line. The government adopted a clear policy of reducing taxes at the expense of the poor and middle classes.
For social work, the result was a huge increase in the number of families requiring assistance and intervention without any increase in personnel. Since social workers have never been one of the more militant of labor populations, we tried to adjust and adapt.
The situation came to the boiling point 2 months ago, with several highly publicized cases of child abuse. The immediate question asked was, “where were the social workers?”
The child welfare social workers are working under caseloads of 200 children per worker. These are high risk cases and the amount of time required for each investigation or treatment is huge. The workers have to make life and death decisions every day about which case and which report receives priority. Some reports wait 2 and 3 weeks before the worker can begin to intervene.
Additionally, social workers with the elderly are expected to provide service to 300-400 elderly individuals. Here, too, the reports include abuse at the hands of children and caretakers, either physical or financial.
Finally, social workers working with the developmentally or physically disabled have caseloads of upwards of 225 families. They are expected to find appropriate placements in the community or in an institution and work with the families.
A separate, but related issue is the safety of social workers. Not surprisingly, the large caseload has led to backlogs in work and is frustrating to the clients as well as the worker. On an almost weekly basis there are reports of violent outbursts in the social service centers by disgruntled clients. So far, these have been “limited” to verbal abuse and property destruction, but the day is not far away when a social worker will be physically harmed. The union is also demanding that guards be placed at the centers to screen the clients and to intervene when required.
The union’s main demand is the funding of an additional 1,000 social work positions in order to end this untenable situation and to allow social workers to carry out their responsibilities in a professional environment. To back up this demand we are refusing to accept any new cases for service, refuse to prepare background reports for the courts in family custody or criminal cases and not to appear in court to give evidence and not to participate in evaluation meetings with any outside agencies. In other words, while we are not striking, we are limiting the service provided. At this point, there are committees that look at life threatening situations and allow interventions in those cases (of which there are many).
2 months after beginning the battle, we have received sympathetic press coverage and there have been initial meetings with the relevant ministries. I should point out that breaking into the news cycle in Israel is not simple. On the day that 1,500 social workers demonstrated in Jerusalem, the main headlines where about the prosecution's witness against the prime minister who was giving testimony in court about envelopes of cash. Social workers also represent a marginalized population who are not good at demanding their rights and who many politicians have succeeded in describing as “leaches” on the public purse.
While we are not guaranteed success, we have succeeded in placing the issue on the public agenda at a time that the 2009 budget is being prepared.
Brian Auslander, LCSW
Israel Association of Social Workers
International Committee
July 7, 2008 Brian Auslander sent the following information about the end of the strike:
After 83 days of job action, an agreement was reached with the government and the social workers in the local social service centers returned to work. While the concrete gains are initially minimal (an additional 221 social work positions out of the 1,000 demanded) the major success is that, for the first time, the workload issue was accepted as open to negotiations. More to the point, the profession's demand for professional working conditions is to be examined by a high level committee and the ministry has obligated itself to accept the committee's recomendations. The committee will initially deal with the workload question, as welll as the question of the defining the linitations of the basket of services that social workers are obligated to provide.
The members of the blue ribbon committee include social work managers in the field, representatives of the union, academics from the social work schools and social workers from the ministry.
We in the union see this as the beginning and not the end. It was very difficult to be in a situation of not providing services to the needy populatins, but the principal of achieving working conditions that will alloow us to provide professional services is of greater long term importance.
Article in Israels leading newspaper: Social worker sanctions delaying prisoner releases
Article in Israels leading newspaper: No one cares about social workers
Article in the newspaper "The Jerusalem Post": Social injustice
Interview with social worker
Photo: © Cyberbeastle | Dreamstime.com
|
