What happens in an Israeli labor claim if the employer kept no attendance records?

Section 25 of the Hours of Work and Rest Law obliges every employer to record actual hours worked by an automatic, electronic or otherwise verifiable method, and to have the record approved rather than reconstructed after the fact. Section 26B was added to the Wage Protection Law by Amendment 24 in 2008 precisely because employees almost never held the evidence needed to prove their hours, while the employer held all of it and had an incentive to keep nothing. The Regional Labor Court applies the provision as a practical presumption. The employee sets out a coherent account of the hours claimed, supported by whatever contemporaneous material exists, and the employer must then produce compliant records or credible contrary evidence. Silence at that point normally decides the claim.

For a foreign employee the message is to preserve the ordinary traces of a working day, because Israeli courts routinely accept them. Entry badge logs, timestamped emails and messages, published rosters, project management timestamps and colleague testimony have all been used to build the necessary account. It is also worth understanding that failing to keep hours records and failing to issue lawful payslips are separate breaches with their own consequences, so a single claim can combine unpaid overtime with damages awarded without proof of loss. The presumption does not manufacture an entitlement where none exists: an employee genuinely holding a senior management or trust position may fall outside the overtime regime altogether, and a validly structured global salary can meet part of the obligation. The wider framework of Israeli employment law decides which of those applies.

From the full guide: Israeli Employment Law for Foreign Companies and Expats

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