The Tel Aviv Regional Labor Court has ordered Coley K.A. Cranes, a company that imports and sells hydraulic cranes, to pay about ₪500,000 to a field salesman it fired after roughly three years. The ruling came to light on 14 October 2026. More than ₪300,000 of the award is unpaid overtime. Interest, linkage and ₪40,000 in legal costs come on top.
The salesman, Avraham Rachmani, had claimed ₪876,000. Two findings in the judgment apply to any business that pays sales staff a base plus commission, including a small business with one person on the road.
Most of his pay came from commission
Rachmani started on a base of ₪14,000 gross a month plus sales commission. His contract guaranteed total pay of at least ₪22,000 gross in the first months. The company later cut the base to ₪7,000 and set commission at 1% on sales up to ₪1.7 million.
He said he usually worked from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and was never paid for the hours beyond a normal day.
The field-worker defense
The company argued that a salesman working in the field is someone whose hours cannot be supervised, so he had no right to overtime. Employers of agents, technicians and reps who spend most of the day away from the office make this argument often.
The court rejected it. Many of Rachmani's meetings were scheduled in advance, so the company knew where he was supposed to be. The court added that the question is whether working hours can be supervised as a whole, and that employers today have management and technology tools that make it possible. On that reasoning, a shared meeting calendar or an app that shows where an employee is can turn a field worker into one who is owed overtime.
Commission from the first shekel is salary
The second finding concerns the base used to calculate overtime. Overtime pay is derived from the regular hourly wage. Leave commission out of the regular wage and the hourly rate drops, and the overtime with it.
The court held that Rachmani's commissions were an integral part of his regular pay. They were paid from the first shekel of sales, tied only to the selling work, and well above his base salary. So they had to be included. With a base of ₪7,000 and most income coming from commission, the gap between the two methods is large. Here it came to more than ₪300,000.
Rachmani also claimed the company changed his pay terms without giving the notice the law requires, and that his social benefits were calculated on less than the agreed ₪22,000. The reports on the judgment do not say how the court ruled on those points.
Where a small business is exposed
Plenty of small businesses employ a salesperson, agent or field rep on a similar structure: a low base, commission on every deal, and flexible hours nobody counts. This case shows how that structure adds up to a large debt over three years.
There are two checks worth doing this month with whoever prepares your payslips. First, if you have a field employee whose meetings are booked in advance, or whose location you can see, start recording their hours and paying overtime. Second, if the employee earns commission from the first shekel and it makes up a large share of their pay, check that it goes into the base for overtime.
If either answer is no, talk to an employment lawyer before changing a contract or a pay structure.