88-day Strike of Senior Israeli University Faculty Ends. (January 21, 2008)

Representatives of the senior faculty of Israel's seven universities and Israeli Minister of Finance, Roni Bar-On late Thursday accepted a compromise brokered by

 Histadrud labour federation chairman Ofer Eini.

The agreement ends the longest (88-day) academic strike Israel has witnessed. Overall the agreement gives the senior faculty (professorial staff)  a raise of ~24% by 2009.

The professorial staff of the seven universities was scheduled to resume teaching by Monday, and it is expected that the university year would be extended through mid-August adding an additional seven weeks. The faculty have pledged to make up all courses by the beginning of the next academic year with classes to be held evenings and Fridays, but there are reports that in addition some of the universities are considering postponing the beginning of the next academic year by a month so that students will have time to undertake remunerative work as they would have done in normal circumstances.

What has yet to be resolved is the desire of the Israeli Government to implement the Shohat Report which sets out a series of reforms for Israel's tertiary education system somewhat reminiscent of those put in place by Labor's John Dawkins in 1988.

The faculty representatives are to conduct future talks with the government on implementing the Shohat report, but the date remains to be set.

However, only that chapter of the Shohat committee report that deals with wages and matters that affect labour conditions and the like is open for negotiation between the coordinating council and the government. Other matters in the multi-hundred page report such as tuition fees of the students and other matters are open for the relevant bodies to negotiate (students unions, senates, etc).

Professor Zvi Hacohen, chair of the senior faculty associations' coordinating council, said in a media release over the weekend, "When the [Shohat] report was released, the government pledged not to implement it without our agreement, and that requires us to negotiate with the government. We will not necessarily agree to all the clauses."

However, Haaretz' Tamara Traubmann reports: "The Finance Ministry remains determined to implement the Shohat Committee report on higher education reform, Minister Roni Bar-On said yesterday, even though the agreement it signed with professors to end their strike Friday did not incorporate clauses from that report."

In addition faculty and government failed to agree on a system for preventing future wage erosion, and therefore the agreement extends only until 2009, and not to 2015, as had been discussed previously.