Last update - 00:00 21/12/2007
Striking professors say treasury's offer of 14% is not enough
By Tamara Traubmann, Haaretz Correspondent
Negotiations to end the senior lecturers strike reached a stalemate Thursday after a meeting between Finance Minister Roni Bar-On and the chair of the university presidents committee, Prof. Moshe Kaveh, failed to achieve any progress.
Kaveh said the dispute is now at "a dead end," and that "only the prime minister can find a solution to save the school year."
Talks between treasury officials and lecturers' organizations broke down 10 days ago and the meetings with university heads, in their capacity as the lecturers' management, were the only channel that remained open.
According to a government source, the offer the treasury made Kaveh "contained no substantial changes" from a previous offer made this week to give the professors a raise of 14 percent in compensation for past wage erosion. The treasury also proposed a mechanism for preventing future wage erosion.
The professors said they could not accept this offer, even though the semester might have to be canceled. Compensation of 14 percent is not enough to cover what they said is their real wage erosion of between 30 and 35 percent, and the treasury's proposed mechanism is insufficient to prevent their salaries becoming eroded in the future.
Prof. Zvi Hacohen, who heads the coordinating council of faculty organizations, said the latest offer is inferior to the agreements the sides had reached last Sunday.
At Thursday's meeting, the treasury officials rejected a proposal by the university presidents. Kaveh expressed "deep disappointment," saying that he thought the proposal had a chance of being approved by the strikers.
A senior university official said that the presidents had proposed spreading out the compensation for salary erosion over fewer years than the treasury had suggested, and was only slightly more generous than the treasury's offer.
Strike sends students to college
The College of Management is reporting an increase of 30 percent in the number of students registering for master's degrees in business management for the spring semester compared to the same period last year. College officials attribute the jump to the ongoing strike at universities.
Other private colleges also say enrollment is on the rise, but the numbers are not in yet.
According to Salit Granit, vice-president for marketing at the College of Management, "the students we're getting now say they had debated whether to go to university or college, and that the strike influenced their decision. MBA studies attracts people who are very aware of their time and money. The strike detered them because when you plan on studying in a certain year and they go ahead and cancel the semester on you, that impacts your judgment."