Starting tomorrow (Sunday), there will be a strike from teaching at universities - and students will remain at home or hardly study until further notice. This comes after the Coordinating Council of Senior Academic Staff Organizations at universities announced the cessation of teaching starting tomorrow. The strike will take place at the Hebrew Universities, Tel Aviv, Ben-Gurion, Haifa, the Technion, Bar Ilan and the Weizmann Institute. That is, it does not include the colleges.
According to them, the organizational step decided to take by the council members came after the Committee of University Heads (VERA), together with the Ministry of Finance and the PBC, had not provided a substantive response to their demand to amend wages due to the erosion that has occurred since the end of the previous agreement.
"Lecturers' salaries have eroded significantly"
Prof. Anat Zeira, Chairman of the Coordinating Council of Senior Academic Staff Organizations at Universities: "The steps led by Vera are liable to harm the proven successes of Israeli academia. The State of Israel should allocate the appropriate resources, after it sees fit to allocate them to other sectors."
According to her, "Our collective agreement ended at the end of 2019, and since then lecturers' salaries have eroded significantly. Despite our requests to renew the agreement, we had to wait a long time for negotiations to begin. For more than a year and a half, we have been negotiating a renewal of the wage agreement. Even though we come to the negotiations with an open heart and a willing soul and offer solutions, it seems that the other side (especially Vereh) is taking its time, holding idle discussions, entrenching itself in its position and is not really interested in reaching an agreement."
WRA said in response: "The committee regrets that once again the Coordinating Council of Senior Academic Staff at the universities has chosen to announce a comprehensive shutdown starting Sunday. This was in the midst of intensive negotiations with the participation of the Salary Commissioner, the PBC, representatives of the RA and representatives of the staff. In recent weeks, concrete proposals have been put on the table, both regarding the erosion of wages (pursuant to the framework agreement with the Histadrut) and regarding a series of issues raised by faculty and universities. The attached letter, which was sent to the senior staff representatives, details the proposals that were placed before him. We hope that the senior faculty members will continue to conduct the negotiations in good faith and willingly and retract their intention to start the strike, which only harms students."
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