Labor ministers slam Tamir over teachers' strike
Education minister harshly criticized by fellow party members over standstill in talks to end crisis in education system. 'You have caused Labor to lose its social image,' Infrastructure Minister Ben-Eliezer tells her
Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer slammed Tamir during a Labor ministers meeting, accusing her of harming the party. "You have turned us into the Treasury's pawns," he said. "This is not the way to conduct negotiations."
"How is the Labor Party portrayed now?" he asked her angrily. "You have caused Labor to lose its social image in terms of education."
Ben-Eliezer asked Tamir to include Histadrut Chairman Ofer Eini in the negotiations with the teachers, stressing that she should have taken this move immediately after the crisis began.
"You should have gone with Ofer Eini from the start. You should go back to him and let him run the negotiations. He cannot be ignored. You have created a situation from which we come out looking bad in any case," he said.
Minister Ami Ayalon, whose name was raised in the past as an education minister candidate, backed Ben-Eliezer's claims.
"If you decided to issue injunctions against the teachers, I will find this very difficult to accept," he warned. "This cannot be resolved without Ofer Eini. Go back to him."
Labor Chairman and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, maintained a vague stance during the meeting.
"The high school students have been wandering the streets for two weeks too many. The prime minister and the finance minister must exert all their influence in order to bring the teachers' strike to an end immediately," he said.
Labor Secretary General Eitan Cabel told the education minister, "Your biggest mistake was leaving the Treasury on the side. You are at the front. Everyone is blaming you, failing to understand that the real problem is the Treasury."
The meeting attendees said that Tamir had looked like "a person in distress", claiming that she had tried to get the Histadrut chairman involved in the talks with the teachers, but to no avail.
Tamir admitted during the meeting that the situation was complicated. "You may be right. I'm having great difficulty reaching an agreement with Ran Erez (chairman of the Middle and High School Teachers' Association). I tried to include Ofer Eini, but did not succeed," she told her colleagues.
