Ezra HaLevi
With the University lecturers’ strike over, approximately 120,000 students returned to Israeli universities Sunday after a three-month-long strike. Senior lecturers reached an agreement with the Finance Ministry over the weekend regarding their salaries. Education Minister Yuli Tamir said Saturday that students would not face a tuition increase.
The first semester will begin now and last until April and the second will last until August. Summer vacation will be cancelled this year.
Sunday will mark the beginning of the first semester courses in all subjects taught by senior lecturers, but final exams in courses taught by junior lecturers, who did not go on strike, will be held now as well.
Bar Ilan University officials announced Sunday that the school would not hold classes on Sunday as other universities plan to do, but rather would wait until Monday. Officials explained that the administration plans to prepare a revised schedule before students return. Tests will be held as planned, they said.
The Final Agreement:
* A 24.2 raise in three payments over the next two years.
* The raise consists of 14 percent to compensate for salary erosion plus the 4.7 percent granted all public sector employees, in addition to a raise of 5.5 percent.
* Lecturers agreed not to strike again before 2010.
Lecturers say the result of the strike was that the Finance Ministry agreed to pay them three times as much as originally offered.
Junior faculty members are now considering a strike. The Coordinating Forum of Junior Academic Staff Associations has dispatched an urgent letter to the Committee of University Presidents demanding negotiations be opened regarding their work conditions.
Students hailed a victory as well, after threatening to strike if implementation of recommendations from the Shochat Committee were made a condition in the agreement reached with senior lecturers. The recommendations, and particularly the proposal to raise tuition, were not mentioned in the final agreement.
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