Video: A professor at a recognized university was arrested at a demonstration; The judge ordered his release (Shlomi Heller)
The Coordinating Council of Senior Academic Staff Organizations at universities announced Thursday morning that it would shut down classes starting Sunday, in protest of the delay in negotiations on a new wage agreement with the Ministry of Finance. The lecturers will not study at the Hebrew Universities, Tel Aviv, Ben-Gurion, Haifa, the Technion, Bar Ilan and the Weizmann Institute.
It will be the second strike by senior officials in recent weeks, after a previous warning strike, but this time there will be no time limit. As long as there is no progress, the staff will continue to strike.
"For a long time, we refrained from taking organizational steps out of good will to reach understandings, but unfortunately, we realized that only the use of organizational steps can lead to progress in negotiations," said Council Chairwoman Prof. Anat Zeira. "We didn't want that, but the ongoing conduct of the university administrations, with the encouragement of state officials, simply leaves us no other choice."
The campus of the Hebrew University (Photo: official website, Wikipedia)
The salary agreement for senior academic staff ended at the end of 2019. Since then, they have been trying to open negotiations on a new agreement, and only at the beginning of last year did talks begin with the Ministry of Finance, the Committee of University Heads (VERA) and the Planning and Budget Committee (PBC). The main demand of the faculty members is to update wages in accordance with changes in the economy. According to their calculations, wages have eroded by 8.75% in recent years.
"For more than a year and a half we have been negotiating the renewal of the wage agreement, but despite the fact that we come with an open heart and a willing soul and propose solutions, it seems that the other side, especially Vereh, is taking the time, holding idle discussions, entrenching itself in its position and is not really interested in reaching an agreement," Zeira charged, adding criticism of the government's distribution of funds that left them out at this stage: "Higher education is the growth engine of the Israeli economy. And the steps led by Vera are liable to harm the proven successes of Israeli academia. The State of Israel should also allocate the appropriate resources to faculty members, after it sees fit to allocate them to other sectors."
The first day of studies at Ben-Gurion University, Be'er Sheva, October 2018 (Photo: Reuven Castro)
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Zeira made it clear that they would not agree to the additional demands placed before them as a condition for raising wages. These include, according to a council source, the introduction of the possibility of a certain percentage of individual contracts, and financial damage or dismissal of faculty whose achievements the board is unhappy with, a move that the council fears will undermine the institution of academic tenure. Another demand is the reduction of the International Science Relations Fund, which covers the costs of travel to training courses and conferences in Israel and abroad."We are not asking for an increase to the salary base, but only a correction of our salary in accordance with the erosion that wages have already absorbed and will continue to absorb.
Not only is our basic demand falling on deaf ears, but we are constantly encountering additional demands for far-reaching changes aimed at negatively changing our wage structure and working conditions. Things have come to a head in recent days when a delusional and outrageous demand was raised, meaning a salary reduction for some faculty members. This conduct on the part of Vera brought the negotiations to a dead end."
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