Last update - 00:00 03/01/2008
University faculty strike becomes longest in Israel university history
By Tamara Traubmann, Haaretz Correspondent
An extraordinary meeting of senior Bar-Ilan University faculty members on Wednesday denounced BIU President Prof. Moshe Kaveh. The move came in response to the decision by the country's university presidents to appeal to the National Labor Court to force an end to the senior lecturers strike.
Among other things, the presidents asked the court to issue injunctions that would bar the striking senior teaching staff from continuing to strike after January 13. The lecturers called the measure a "betrayal of the spirit of academia."
Since the court request was submitted, similar denunciations along with calls for the resignation of the university president have been passed in extraordinary sessions in all Israeli universities, with the exception of Tel Aviv University. The president of TAU asked for his name to be removed from the court request.
Up to now, the faculty of BIU, whose president is also chairman of the council of university presidents, were notable for their silence in the strike. On Wednesday, however, senior lecturers passed a resolution denouncing Kaveh and called on him to withdraw the request for injunctions against them. The faculty members also resolved to call for the resignations of all academic officials - deans, department heads and committee chairs - in the event the injunctions are issued.
As of Thursday, the strike becomes the longest in Israeli university history. According to sources involved in the negotiations, the recently renewed talks are in danger of reaching a dead end once again. A meeting on Wednesday morning between the striking teachers and the university presidents and treasury officials, mediated by National Labor Court president Stephen Adler, ended without agreement. The parties reconvened Wednesday night, at Adler's request, and the meeting was still taking place when this paper went to press.
In Wednesday's morning meeting, the parties attempted to find a mechanism to prevent future erosion of senior faculty wages. The treasury representatives rejected proposals to link the teachers wages to various employee groups such as workers with at least 16 years of education, on the grounds that this would lead to the reopening of collective bargaining agreements in the economy as a whole.
After leaving the meeting at noon, Prof. Zvi HaCohen, chairman of the coordinating council of faculty associations, said, "In today's negotiations it was absolutely proved that while the court president and the university heads and the faculty unions continue to present creative proposals with the intention of ending the crisis, the treasury's position comes down to saying 'No' to every offer."