University lecturers go ahead with strike

Tamir and Treasury Wage Director Eli Cohen tried to convince the lecturers not to launch their planned strike, but to no avail. Shortly after 1:15 am, the parties left the office after the lecturers' rejected the minister's compromise offer.

Education and Finance Ministry officials said in response, "Over the past week, a large number of meetings were held with the lecturers' representatives in a bid to open the academic school year as planned.

"We regret the fact that the academic staff has chosen the strike tactics, which will unnecessarily harm the students and the higher education system, instead of continuing with the negotiations and achieving results."

The University Presidents' Council, which came to an agreement with the Finance Ministry earlier in the week to abandon their threats to strike in return for a budgetary supplement, called on students to come to classes on Sunday.

Regardless of the lecturers' strike, classes given by junior lecturers and substitute lecturers will be held as scheduled, they said. Additionally, libraries, laboratories, and administrative services will function normally.

In contrast to the lecturers, the university presidents managed to reach a compromise with the Finance Ministry regarding a budgetary supplement of approximately $180 million.

4,500 lecturers and academic staff on strike

The strike will cause disruptions at the following institutions: Tel Aviv University, Ben-Gurion University, University of Haifa, the Weitzman Institute, Hebrew University, Bar-Ilan University and the Technion. 

Some 4,500 lecturers and academic staff will go ahead with the strike in an attempt to reach a new agreement with the Finance Ministry over their wages. The last agreement between the government and the teaching staff was signed in 2001 and since then, the professors claim their salaries have suffered "erosion".

According to the academic staff, their salaries have "eroded" 15% in the last six years in addition to the 5% supplement that public workers received as part of a Histadrut (labor federation) deal. 

The junior staff supports the senior faculty members in their efforts, but is still planning on holding class on Sunday. That being said, the junior staff does not intend to fill in for the senior staff.

Following budgetary cuts in the higher education sector, there are thousands of substitute lecturers that are now employed in Israel's universities. These 'surrogate' lecturers receive a low salary, are not entitled to a pension or severance pay and receive no social benefits.

Substitute lecturers currently constitute about 40% of instructors at Israeli universities and makeup 80% at Israeli colleges. They are not protected by labor unions and as such are not scheduled to participate in Sunday's strike.