The contractual relationship between the parents and the preschool is not an equal one. The parents who come to the preschool receive a standard-form contract par excellence. They have no discretion and no ability to negotiate. This is the contract, this is the preschool.
When I say a standard-form contract, it means they truly have no ability to negotiate. If, for the sake of example, the preschool teacher now stipulates that if the preschool closes the parents will pay 2,000 shekels, and they supposedly agreed, then the parents truly have no choice but to pay.
This entire contractual arrangement is problematic from the outset; there is no equality here between the parents and the preschool. There is a very, very great relationship of dependence — the parents depend on the preschool teacher, and they are afraid, rightly so, that heaven forbid their child will not be properly cared for, or that by mistake he will be treated in an unpleasant manner.
I also want to take you back to the first period of the lockdown. When the preschools were closed, the parents were asked to continue paying the preschool’s fixed expenses. They were required to pay the preschool’s fixed expenses, and whoever did not pay the preschool’s expenses would not even have anywhere to return to.
During the COVID-19 period, my firm provided free legal advice to 40,000 parents across the country. Every day we receive inquiries from parents who are helpless; they truly have no ability to cope with the preschools. The parents were required to pay even for disinfectant supplies for the preschool teachers; they were asked to make an additional payment so that the preschool could keep its head above water during this period. And what in fact happened is that the parents were turned into business partners within the preschool.
It should be noted that the parents are not business partners in the preschool; they are consumers in every respect. And as an MK said regarding refunds for flights, the parents too — some of whom were placed on unpaid leave and some of whom are self-employed and receive no money, whose livelihood was harmed. Can the parents choose not to return the child to the preschool? Can they transfer the child to another preschool, to a different setting with new friends and a preschool teacher they do not know? That simply will not happen.
And what happened in this story is that, having no choice, the parents received those addenda (COVID addenda), which are unlawful, and were required to sign, and they truly had no choice. If you do not sign the addendum, the child does not return to the preschool.
What you said earlier, for the sake of example, regarding the parents’ consent to the agreed payment — friends, what discretion does a parent really have in the preschool’s WhatsApp group? Can the parent object to the preschool’s demand? There is no such thing. The parent is more than a captive customer; he is a customer who has no choice whatsoever.
I think that the main problem that arose here — and I am not against the preschool teachers and not against the preschools, we are on the same side — but the main problem that arose here is that the state did not come and put the matters on the table and ask: Is the COVID-19 pandemic in the nature of force majeure? Is there force majeure here? Is there frustration of contract here? Because the state did not really address this substantive contractual point, the result is that everyone did as they saw fit. Whoever wanted to, refunded; whoever wanted to, charged more money; whoever wanted to, closed the preschool — and one big chaos was created here. There is no uniformity in the message, and that is really the problem, and that is what I am aiming at.
I agree with Keren that had the state defined the matters clearly, we would not have needed to reach the courts. Incidentally, the parents do not really reach the courts for one very simple reason: it is like a class action, their damage is so small — 1,000, 2,000, 3,000 shekels. Will parents hire a lawyer for 20,000 shekels? It is not economically worthwhile.
Regarding the recommendations of the inter-ministerial committee, which recommended that parents pay for the Passover holidays, I am against those recommendations, since there is no real reason to pay for those holidays, because the preschools did not pay the assistants for the holidays, since their workers were on unpaid leave. So why should the parents pay for a service that was not provided? So either the contractual relations were suspended, or the contractual relations were not suspended.
The preschools are a business, and despite the relationship of trust, the parents are not partners in the preschool’s profits and should not be partners in its losses, to the extent that they exist.
I think the perfect solution, for both the preschools and the parents, is for the state to propose a recommended contract on its behalf, and for that contract to become a binding recommendation.
