The union of senior academic personnel will declare a labor dispute this week, following the finance ministry's refusal to begin negotiations on a new wage agreement.

Personnel from universities around the country will join their colleagues from Ben Gurion University and the Hebrew University, who announced labor unrest on Sunday.

The current wage agreement for senior professors expired in 2001. According to the chairman of the unions' coordination committee, Professor Zvi Hacohen, professors' wages have eroded by some 8 percent since then. He added that negotiations on the matter, which been ongoing for about a year with the committee of university heads, have yielded no results due to the committee's inability to reach agreement with the treasury.

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The finance ministry refuses to discuss the matter before central guidelines have been drawn in negotiations with the Histadrut labor federation with regard to all public sector employees, talks which are only set to begin in December.

A finance ministry spokesman said Monday that the matter had been concluded in a meeting two weeks ago between the treasury's wage supervisor, Eli Cohen, and the chairman of the committee of university heads' wage panel, Professor Nadav Liron.

Hacohen said, however, that Liron does not represent senior personnel employees, adding that university employees are not unionized with the institutions themselves but rather in various representative organizations.

"Considering that the personnel has been working without a wage agreement since December 2001, it is insolent to say now that we must wait until they've determined general rules with the Histadrut," said Hacohen.

"The treasury is obligated to facilitate negotiations, and the treasury's wage supervisor is exploiting his authority and deciding when to grant these benefits within the public economy in order to delay these negotiations. If as a result of this the universities go on strike, it will be his responsibility," added Hacohen.