ISRAEL Trends and Developments Contributed by: Dafna Shmuelevich, Eran Shoham, Zohar Geva and Ayal Erez, Dafna Shmuelevich & Co
halt prematurely without reaching substantive consid - eration. Lowering the bar: The Supreme Court’s shift in certification standards A landmark judgment delivered by the Israeli Supreme Court in 2022 has significantly reduced the thresh - old for certification, aiming to allow more employ - ment-related class actions to proceed to substantive review. This jurisprudential shift has been reflected in the Israeli labour courts’ recent decisions, including approving motions based on causes that were usu - ally denied. Expanding frontiers: from economic claims to complex workplace claims Traditionally, class actions in the labour field have focused on quantifiable economic rights, such as pen - sion contributions and salary deductions. Today, however, there is a noticeable expansion into more qualitative domains that necessitate complex factual determinations. Recent proceedings have included cases brought by independent contractors of gig economy platforms seeking retroactive classifica - tion as employees ‒ a factual context more appropri - ately addressed through individual proceedings. Other emerging areas include allegations of discrimination and sexual harassment. This broadening trend introduces both private and public risks. Reduced procedural barriers may lead to an increase in class actions with insufficient prima facie merit, filed by claimants who are inadequately positioned to represent the group. This phenomenon can also impose undue financial strain on employers defending against weak motions for certification, contribute to the overload of an already burdened judiciary system, and potentially harm the very groups of employees whose rights the proceedings are intended to protect, particularly when litigation is mismanaged. It should be noted that this trend does not apply in unionised workplaces, as labour courts have also observed. Labour courts generally deny motions to certify class actions, as the union is perceived as the
authorised party to enforce employees’ rights and has greater capacity to negotiate necessary modifications to employment conditions. Labour Law: Attempts to Establish Modern Labour Unions Constrained by a Conservative Definition of “Union” by the Israeli National Labour Court The Israeli collective labour laws do not provide statu - tory definitions for key terms such as “a union” or “a strike”. Those terms were shaped by case law which defined a set of criteria for what constitutes a “union.” Since only a “union” may be legally recognised under Israeli law as a “representative workers’ organisation”, authorised to conduct collective bargaining with the employer to sign a collective agreement, these criteria effectively serve as threshold requirements for collec - tive representation status. In practice, Israel has several large trade unions. In contrast to Europe, only in a few specific sectors are there local “work councils” recognised as employee representative bodies, despite being unaffiliated with a traditional union. The Nokia case: a glimpse into alternative union models A rare opportunity to adapt a modern unionised entity appeared in the case of Nokia Israel in 2025. A large group of employees, opposed to traditional unioni - sation under the Histadrut (Israel’s largest national labour union), initiated a counter-organising effort by forming an internal works council. One of the guiding principles of the council’s committee was the preser - vation of employees’ individual employment agree - ments alongside a collective agreement. The works council gained broad support among Nokia’s employ - ees and began engaging in collective bargaining with the employer. The Regional Labour Court recognised the new entity as a representative union and authorised it to conduct exclusive collective bargaining with the employer. This ruling was seen as a potential shift from traditional union models, offering a framework for the emer - gence of additional modern employee organisations that operate independently and primarily reflect the employees’ preferences, in line with the individual freedom of association.
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