The union of senior academic personnel is expected to 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 declared a labor dispute Sunday.

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

The Finance Ministry refuses to discuss the matter before drafting basic guidelines with the Histadrut labor federation for all public sector employees. These talks are set to begin only in December.

A finance ministry spokesman said yesterday that the matter had been concluded in a meeting two weeks ago between the treasury's wage supervisor and a representative of the universities' leadership.