Job: No, no, you said, you told me for an hour, 35 I will pay you.
Mordechai: No, I told you 29.12, plus conditions, it will get you 35 shekels. That's it, that's what I said.
Job: No, you didn't tell me that, you told me, I did, you told me,
Mordechai: Job, Job,
Job: At first 34..." (emphasis added)
- This conversation, which apparently took place at the end of May 22 or the beginning of June 2022, close to the end of the plaintiff's employment (about 4 months before the first claim against the defendant was filed), supports the defendant's version that when the wage was said to be different from what was stated in the slip (an hourly rate of ILS 35), the reference was to the minimum wage together with the social rights. Indeed, as can also be seen from the table above, there were months in which the minimum wage together with social benefits reached ILS 35 per hour (see months 3/22 and 4/22, as well as the rest of the months in which the wage was close to ILS 35 per hour, with the exception of months 8/21 and 5/22).
Moreover, from the aforesaid conversation, it emerges that the plaintiff claimed near the end of his employment that his salary was ILS 35 per hour and not ILS 37 per hour as claimed by him in the present lawsuit.
- It should also be noted that in January 2022 the plaintiff was on sick leave and received sick pay and vacation pay as stated in the pay slip, which also supports the fact that this is not a fictitious slip (in April 2022 the plaintiff was also on leave and was paid vacation pay).
- Moreover, we did not accept the plaintiff's arguments that there was an improper manner in which the convalescence pay was paid in the pay slips, since it was proven that the payment was made in accordance with the expansion order in the cleaning industry. In addition, we did not accept the argument that the payment in respect of a study fund in the amount of 8% of the salary and convalescence pay (under 7.5% of the salary and convalescence pay), due to a technical interest in the defendant's salary software, indicates that the coupons are not authentic. The payments for compensation and pension in the pay slips were also made in short (in the first month they were not paid at all) and therefore it cannot be said that they were made in order to inflate the wages (so that it would reach the level of the hourly rate claimed by the plaintiff) or in order to conceal the real hourly rate.
- In addition, the total hours in the attendance reports also correspond to what is stated in the pay slips - as the plaintiff himself stated (except for the month of 9/21 when the number of hours on the slip is significantly higher than the number of hours in the report).
- In summary, we are of the opinion that the totality of the evidence testifies to the fact that the defendant has met the burden of persuasion according to which the plaintiff's salary was the minimum wage (as mentioned in the pay slips), and not the salary claimed by the plaintiff. Accordingly, the calculations of Job's rights will be made according to an hourly wage of ILS 29.12.
Having decided the plaintiffs' arguments regarding the amount of hourly wage that was agreed upon with them, we will now turn to the second part of the judgment, which deals with the various rights claimed by them (later we will also refer to the liability of defendant 2).