More strikes loom at universities - Haaretz

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Mon., November 19, 2007 Kislev 9, 5768

Israel Time: 02:13 (EST+7)

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More strikes loom at universities

By Tamara Traubmann

As the strike by senior university faculty enters its fifth week with no solution in sight, there are signs of additional strikes this academic year.

Junior faculty members at Tel Aviv University may disrupt classes this week unless progress is made in their negotiations with the university, which have been going on for three years. And junior faculty organizations at half of Israel's universities are considering going on strike when their senior colleagues end theirs.

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There might also be another strike by students, who last year stayed away for more than a month to protest a planned tuition hike. The government has pledged to discuss raising tuition this January, and negotiations with the students are expected to begin soon, but they have already threatened to renew their strike if the government insists on the reform.

Junior faculty organizations at the universities of Tel Aviv, Haifa and Be'er Sheva have declared labor disputes, or will do so shortly, while Hebrew University in Jerusalem is contemplating joining them.

Chair of the coordinating body for the junior faculty unions, Eli Lahar, says the group's top priority is to unionize adjuncts and improve their terms of employment. Adjunct faculty are fired every eight months, with no social benefits.

The junior faculty support the striking senior lecturers, and are calling for contending with the broad crisis in academia - job cuts, overcrowded classes, and the deteriorating state of libraries, labs and overall instruction quality.

Lahar said that junior faculty appeals to the Planning and Budgeting Committee, which allocates funds to higher education institutions, went unanswered.

The committee's demand to slash senior faculty positions "encourages universities to employ adjunct lecturers instead of senior faculty, and thereby essentially encourages injurious employment," Lahar said.

Meanwhile, the senior faculty organizations have announced that as of today, they will no longer teach at the full-tuition "executive studies programs," except defense-establishment programs. This will impact mostly Tel Aviv University, which runs 18 programs of this sort.

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