Fired while her husband was on reserve duty: Court ordered compensation of tens of thousands of shekels

An employee in her 40s who began working as a quality inspector at a metal manufacturing plant for electronics was fired about a week after the outbreak of the war on October 7, after she was forced to stay at home with her children. The Labor Court ruled that her dismissal was illegal and awarded her compensation in the amount of 137,000 shekels.

Her husband was called up to serve under 'Order 8' and was absent from home for 150 days, while the educational frameworks for her children — aged four and one and a half — were closed. After receiving help from family members during the first week, the employee was forced to stay home to look after the children. In response to her notification of absence, she received a dismissal letter without a hearing and with the justification of 'activity reduction'.

The company's attempt to evade responsibility was exposed in court.

Before the Labor Court in Haifa, the company claimed that the dismissal was due to professional considerations and performance deficiencies, and even claimed that the employee frequently took breaks. However, Judge Miri Shay rejected these claims as 'belated arguments' and ruled unequivocally that the hearing protocol presented by the company was fabricated and that, in practice, a proper hearing was never held for the employee.

The judge ruled that her dismissal was contrary to the Law on Protection of Employees in Emergency Situations, which prohibits the dismissal of an employee due to absence for childcare reasons following the reserve service of a spouse, and that she was discriminated against on the basis of parenthood.

This section of the law is intended to provide a vital protective umbrella for spouses of reservists serving on the front lines, and it establishes an absolute prohibition on harming the scope of employment or the job security of employees who find themselves in a situation where they are unable to reach work due to the closure of educational frameworks and the lack of an alternative framework while the spouse is drafted.

Because of this, and in light of additional violations such as failure to provide notice to the employee, the company was ordered to pay the employee approximately 112,000 shekels in compensation, plus 25,000 shekels in legal fees — a total of approximately 137,000 shekels.