Israeli case law has distinguished between several types of strike, which differ from one another in their nature, significance and the legal outcome that follows from them:¹

Economic strike — This is a strike that derives from a professional struggle and protection of work conditions, and it is in essence a permitted strike. The economic strike has been recognized as legitimate since the early days of the State. In general, a strike of this kind breaks out within the framework of negotiations to sign a new collective agreement, a demand to improve work conditions, prevention of any harm to them, etc. Israeli law imposed a few restrictions on the economic strike, while adopting the rule that the harm to the employer is not a sufficient reason to prohibit the strike. When it decides upon the legality of the economic strike, the Labor Court is experienced in examining its proportionality, while making the necessary balances between the freedom to strike and other basic rights that are being weighed. It would therefore appear that the accepted approach is that an economic strike is legitimate and as such it will entitle the strikers to protection under employment law.

Political strike — a strike that constitutes a means of pressurizing the sovereign against a legislative proceedings, a change in legislation, a sovereign decision and anything similar. A strike directed against the Knesset or the Government as sovereign, whose main purpose is not to protect employment conditions, is a political strike that is not recognized in Israel law as a legitimate professional struggle. The Supreme Court already decided in the Hatib case² that the political strike is not lawful since it undermines democracy. It is important to state that a strike that is not legitimate is a breach of an employment contract, and therefore the striking employees are not entitled to legal protections for it.

Quasi-political strike — A dual-purpose strike, which seeks, first, to pressure the sovereign in order that it will change its policies, like the political strike, and second, a struggle concerning the protection of the employment conditions of employees that think that the sovereign’s policies will result in their rights being prejudiced. Such a strike was recognized in the Bezeq case as legitimate, insofar as it is a short protest strike and satisfies certain restrictions.

Sympathy strike - A strike by employees of a certain employer that identifies with the struggle of employees of another employer, where the former are prepared to help the latter in achieving their demands. As a rule, the strikers in a sympathy strike at the former plant do not have an employment dispute and direct claims against their employer, who is also not the direct address for solving the original employment dispute between the other employer and his employees.³

Already in the 1960s,⁴ a sympathy strike was recognized by case law as legitimate and this was affirmed by the Supreme Court in the Elco case,⁵ where it said:

‘… We have already discussed this element that the employment relationship is not severed by the strike, in CA 573/68 Shavit v. Hanan [1969] IsrSC 34(1) 516, at page 520, where we also mentioned another important element of a strike, namely the intention and desire to achieve thereby the demands made by the strikers of their employer for themselves of for the employees of another employer… We do not have a general statutory definition of a strike, and for our purposes we can use the succinct definition given in the aforesaid Shavit case, namely that “A striker is a person who, without severing his employment relationship with his employer, stops working, together with other employees, in order to achieve his demands against his employer or in order to help other employees achieve their demands against their employer.’ A work stoppage of the latter kind, where employees go to the aid of other employees, is what is known colloquially as a ‘sympathy strike’.”’

¹    Ibid. LA 23/07 Israel Electric Company Ltd. v. New General Federation et al. (hereafter: ‘the Electric Company case’).

²    Supra, note 13 — the Hatib case.

³       Chaim Berinson and Assaf Berinson, ‘Sympathy Strike — Its Status and Proportionality,’ Berinson Volume, 2000.

⁴    CA 573/68 Shavit v. Hanan et al. [1969] IsrSC 23(1) 516, at page 520.

⁵    HCJ 566/76 Elco Electro-Mechanic Production Ltd. v. National Labor Court [1977] IsrSC 31(2) 197, at page 207; HCJ 1074/93 Attorney-General et al. v. National Labor Court et al. [1975] IsrSC 29(2) 485; R. Ben-Israel, Strikes, at page 56.