What is the difference between an elected official and an employee?
- The main core, the axis around which the entire petition revolved, is found in the claim that an elected official and in our case a deputy mayor (which is the role of the Official andNachmani) is not a public servant, and cannot be considered as such, whatever the need for which recognition of him as an employee is sought. The state lists a series of differences between the two "statuses," each of which, and certainly their accumulation, precludes the recognition of the deputy head of the municipality as an employee.
These are the main differences:
- As a rule, deputy mayors are not entitled to salaries for their work. The possibility of a local authority to pay a salary to the deputy head of the municipality is limited, and is subject to administrative decisions by both the head of the council and the director general of the Ministry of the Interior. The reasons for this subordination were explained at length in the petition and are not our business. The importance lies in the bottom line, namely that today, according to the Ministry of Interior's director-general's circulars, the possibility of paying wages is limited in scope. Thus, a deputy head of an authority will not be entitled to a salary, even if he performs work if the conditions set by the Ministry of Interior are not met.
- Workers' wages are usually subject to collective agreements that do not apply to the salaries of elected officials. The salaries of the latter are high and close to those of ministers.
- There is no scope of office for elected officials, and there is no supervision over whether he is in and out of work.
- The elected public in general, and the deputy heads of councils in particular, are identified with the employer, i.e., the local authority. He has the power to control the authority of which he is a part. The ability to fire him is extremely limited and is in fact open to the public. On the other hand, the employee suffers from an inherent inferiority vis-à-vis his employer, and therefore, in the same context, he needs the protection of the protective laws.
- The work performed by the council members is not usually done for the purpose of making a living and is carried out in her free time. Thus, for example, Rasmi did his job while working in two schools at the same time, and for his work there he received a salary from the State of Israel.
- An elected official does not work in the classic sense of this definition. There is no doubt that these are complex labor relations that are sometimes characterized by the blurring of the boundaries between employer and employee. However, even complex employment relations do not negate the employee's need to protect his rights in certain cases:
"... 'Status' is not created in the agreement and is not revoked in the agreement, and just as rights cannot be explicitly waived or stipulated, so too those rights should not be waived by calling the relationship between the two in question any designation that negates the fact that one is an 'employee' and the other is an 'employer'. What is stated in the agreement can and will be considered, but it is clear that the determinant is the entirety of the relationship between the parties" (The Asulin Case , at p. 711).