Bottom Shekel / Sky-high salaries that stay in the shadows

Although top earners in the public sector bring home a tidy salary, they suffer irritating criticism every year: from the press, the state comptroller and the Finance Ministry. The winning combination, of course, would be to make a substantial income while dodging the volleys of criticism.

The question is how to achieve this balance. It's simple: go for grey, the winning hue in the public sector. Although half of the criticism tends to be aimed at the bloated salaries of chairmen, managing directors or department heads, it's often the anonymous librarian or port pilot who are making the truly scandalous salaries.

Here's an example from the Bank of Israel: the central bank's top wage earners are board members, who draw fire every year. No one takes any notice of the programmer who earns a gross monthly salary of NIS 48,951, and likely works a bit less than most high-tech employees who were the first to be hit by this past year's economic crisis.

It's true that the top earners in 2008 were a few very senior doctors, but let's face it - how much are people willing to pay a heart surgeon? What's more, plenty of people would be happy to know that a doctor enjoys the benefits of financial security and isn't distracted by mortgage payments while peering into an open chest on the operating table. So, better to be the chief librarian at the Bank of Israel who grosses NIS 38,410 - quite a bit more than the municipal librarian at the neighborhood community center.

Take a look at the Israel Broadcasting Authority report: the highest wages and least amount of scrutiny are enjoyed by the authority's inspectors (who gross about NIS 35,000 a month), its warehouse supervisor (who makes NIS 32,212), and of course the vice president of collections, who earns a gross monthly salary of NIS 28,593 for collecting television license fees.

At the Eilat Port company, for instance, an anchorage worker is a lucrative job that grosses NIS 37,563 a month; while at Rafael you'd do well as a department manager, earning between NIS 17,000 and 46,000 (and the company has dozens of such employees). A department manager at the Israel Electric Corp., surprisingly, is not necessarily the most worthwhile occupation. Better to be a bus driver, who grosses NIS 38,476 a month.

Another of those great 'grey' jobs is that of a port pilot. Although they draw fire every year upon the publication of the wage report, they still remain in the safe area. The most senior among them works at the Haifa Port and earns a monthly salary of NIS 69,769.

And what does a port pilot do? A sea captain by training, a pilot's duty is to navigate incoming and outgoing ships through the harbor and dock.

Haifa Port also pays decent wages to 'multi-purpose stewards.' These are dock labor coordinators, responsible for loading and unloading cargo arriving in port. The 'chief labor coordinator,' who also works at the port of Haifa, makes a gross monthly salary of NIS 59,364, is responsible for assigning workers to teams of laborers.

The report contains plenty of other instances of high salaries that tend to remain in the 'grey' region: the president of Tel Aviv University, for instance, gets plenty of flack with his NIS 63,247 salary, but the head of doctoral studies at Bar-Ilan University earns only slightly less - NIS 55,978 - and remains anonymous.

In light of the above, the Israel Defense Forces (a top wage payer itself) might do well to consider replacing its olive-green camouflage with grey. Grey of all hues, it seems, is ideal for avoiding flak.