The classic tests used to determine whether a certain person should be considered an employee were mainly the following: The test of control - a person will be considered an employee if his employer has the right to supervise his work. The integration test - this is the test that the labor courts used extensively. An employee is a person who is integrated into the factory and does not have his own independent business that serves the factory as an external entity. This test included the positive aspect - the requirement to have a productive factory, and the negative aspect - that this is not an independent business owner serving the factory. The positive aspect is included in the Contractual Relationship between the person who performs the work and his employer. In the negative aspect, the emphasis was on the hallmarks that characterize an external service provider and a service provider that he employs.
Other tests that have been recognized are the personal relationship test as well as the reasonable person test. The above is a minimalist review, a little that does not contain much for the purpose of defining an employee, but it is sufficient for us to do so - for the sake of the issue before us. Like me, like anyone who has dealt with the issue before us and is close to it, I will turn to Professor Ruth Ben-Israel's comprehensive article "The 'Elected' and 'the Holder of the Office According to the Law' - Are They Really Workers?" Labor Law Yearbook ARequest of a Defendant Judge 1991 and the article of the President of the National Labor Court as he was then described as M. Goldberg: "Employee and Employer Photo מצב" Law Studies 17 560Car accident without bodily injuries 1992, at p. 19 (hereinafter: Goldberg) (see also National Labor Court Hearing 3-238 Ben-David v. Merhavim Local Council, PD 28(1) 461 (1995); National Labor Court Hearing 52/ 3-158 Yair v. Glieberman, [Published in Nevo]; Civil Appeal 5378/90 Association for Physical Culture, Hapoel Tiberias 50' Tiberias Tax Assessor, פ"IV 48(2) 416 (1994); National Labor Court Hearing 5/2-3 Dabul v. State of Israel, [Published in Nevo]; High Court of Justice 5169/93 Mor N' The National Labor Court, פ"D.N.(4) 628 (1996) (hereinafter: the Mor); National Labor Court Hearing 3-227 Melman v. Abudi (unpublished); National Labor Court Hearing 52/3-142 Elharinat v. Kfar Ruth, PD 24 535 (1992); High Court of Justice 1163/98 The above; he(Haifa) 4356/99 Katz v. A.A. Telepage Broadcast (1989) inTax Appeal [Published in Nevo]).
- In the case before us - the guiding ruling, "The Urim Ve-Tummim", in the light of which the judges of the court interpreted the situation before them in the Seroussi which has already been mentioned above. In the same matter, the question of the entitlement of someone who served as deputy and acting head of a local council was entitled to receive unemployment benefits after his term ended and he remained unemployed. The court there accepted the petition and ruled that the petitioner was an employee for the purpose of receiving unemployment benefits. The principle, or perhaps the main and leading message set forth in this judgment, according to the opinion of all seven members of the panel, is that the terms employee and employer must be given a functional interpretation, and not a uniform interpretation that ignores the specific context in which interpretation is required. In the words of President Barak:
"The normative baggage carried by key figures in this field - including the 'employee' and the 'employer' - is not universal. The terms 'employee' and 'employer' do not have a single meaning, which applies to all parts of labor law. The meaning of these terms varies with the legislative context in which they appear... This is also the case in comparative law (see Christie, England and Cottler, Employment Law in Canada 10 (2nd. Ed., Wedderburn, The Worker and the Law 116 (1986)). ;(1993, this is the case in Israeli law. The meaning of the words "employee" and "employer" varies according to its context, and its context is determined by its purpose. Prof. A. Zamir rightly noted that: 'Before presenting the question of how to distinguish between an employee and a contractor, it is necessary to clarify what the classification is for' (A. Zamir, 'Employee or Contractor', Mishpatim 22, 113, 117 (1993)).