Professors threaten to resign if injunctions served - Haaretz

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Fri., January 11, 2008 Shvat 4, 5768

Israel Time: 02:32 (EST+7)

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Professors threaten to resign if injunctions served

By Tamara Traubman

Tags: Labor Court

Professors holding senior administrative positions in departments, institutes and university committees threatened yesterday to resign if the Labor Court rules in favor of injunctions that would force the striking lecturers back to work.

Yesterday, the Committee of University Heads asked the Labor Court to discuss their request for injunctions against the lecturers. A request was filed with the court two weeks ago and was put on hold during the negotiations that the lecturers, universities and the Treasury held under the auspices of the Labor Court. These talks broke down on Tuesday.

If the request is approved, the university heads intend to put them into effect that same day. The injunctions will be valid for two weeks.

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Professor Moshe Kaveh, chairman of the Committee of University Heads, said that "the committee is of the opinion that the conflict should be resolved through authorized arbitration. However, if this will not become possible, there will be no other option but to resort to two-week injunctions, in order to resume teaching while intensive negotiations take place toward an agreement." In response, faculty unions described the request for injunctions as "crossing a red line."

Preparations are underway on university campuses for general assemblies to decide what form of protest should be adopted against the injunctions.

Prof. Avner De-Shalit, head of the Political Science Department at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said that if it is decided during the assembly to call on heads of departments to resign, he and many of his colleagues would do so.

"The entire system of relations in the university is built on voluntarism and mutual respect. The step taken toward the injunctions is a brutal break with such a system," he said.

Prof. Malka Schaps, head of the Mathematics Department at Bar Ilan University, said that last week she decided to call on all the faculty holding senior positions "to resign their posts and not cooperate with the heads of the university, in protest to the harm done to the foundation of academia."

In an e-mail to the faculty in her department, Schaps said she would resign if the injunctions are issued.

Solidarity was expressed by department and committee heads at Haifa and Tel Aviv universities, as well as at the Technion.

Prof. Lev Grinberg, head of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Ben-Gurion University, said that different methods of protest are being considered in an effort not to harm students or the ability of the university to bounce back from the crisis.

One of the options being considered is for the senior academics serving, voluntarily, on government-sponsored bodies, to suspend their participation.

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