Koach LaOvdim—Democratic Workers’ Organization—is an Israeli trade union organization established in 2007, which brings together groups of workers from a wide range of sectors and helps them set up workers’ committees for the protection of workers’ rights and the signing of collective agreements that guarantee an improvement in conditions of employment. As of 2018, Koach LaOvdim has about 13,000 members and represents about 35,000 workers, men and women alike.

Koach LaOvdim spearheaded the unionization boom of the late 2000s in the Israeli labor market. In recent years, tens of thousands of workers from various sectors have become unionized and have brought about change in the conditions of employment in the workplace., Koach LaOvdim unionizes workers from sectors that were not previously organized or whose employment conditions deteriorated due to privatization, contract employment and other adverse employment practices.

Koach LaOvdim operates according to the Scandinavian model of democratic trade unions, and as such the organization’s charter requires that committee members be democratically elected. Koach LaOvdim is the only organization in Israel in which all the decisions concerning the committee’s activities, including the signing of collective agreements and the start and end of strikes, are put to the vote of all unionized workers at the workplace. Furthermore, the Representative Assembly—the organization’s leadership—has representation from every committee in Koach LaOvdim, according to their relative size.
Koach LaOvdim promotes socio-economic change in Israeli society in general and in the labor market in particular. The achievements of Koach LaOvdim include collective agreements and significant court rulings.
In addition to local and national unions, Koach LaOvdim promotes socio-economic issues every year, in accordance with the decision of the organization’s appointed officers. We believe that strong trade unions are the key to a policy of social justice.