As academic year begins, college lecturers go on strike
Senior lecturers in 17 public colleges say while they get paid the same as their university counterparts, they work almost double the hours; they demand equal conditions to those of university lecturers; junior staff at Beit Berl also on strike, over employment agreement yet to be approved.
Some 2,000 doctors and professors in public colleges have been complaining about their employment conditions for quite some time, and have been demanding equal conditions to those of their counterparts at universities.
While college senior lecturers receive identical pay to that of their colleagues at universities, the college lecturers say they work double the amount of hours—12 teaching hours a week compared to 6-8 weekly teaching hours for university lecturers. They are also protesting the fact they are not eligible for paid sabbaticals and research budgets like their university counterparts.
During the meetings, the lecturers demanded to: teach the same amount of hours as their university colleagues; have their salary raised to equal the salary of their counterparts at universities; improved seniority conditions, including seniority-based pay raises; a 13.5 percent increase to the budget for excelling lecturers; and paid sabbaticals.
"Unfortunately, the school year will not begin in 17 public colleges across the country due to the Finance Ministry's humiliating treatment of students and lecturers in the periphery," Dr. Efrat Knoler, a senior lecturer at the Zefat Academic College, told Ynet. "We call on the finance and education ministers to keep their word and reduce social and geographical gaps and bring to the end of the strike."
The Finance Ministry said in response, "The Committee of Heads of Public Academic Colleges, the Planning and Budgeting Committee and the Council for Higher Education, in cooperation with the Finance Ministry, have presented the Council of Public Academic College Senior Staff a worthy and fair compromise in an effort to prevent the planned strike and allow the 55,000 students to begin the academic year. We regret that the members of the senior staff decided to ignore the compromise and chose instead to abandon the negotiating table."
The colleges affected by the strike are:
- Western Galilee College, Acre
- Afeka College of Engineering, Tel Aviv
- Ahva Academic College, Ahva
- Ashkelon Academic College
- Hadassah Academic College, Jerusalem
- Kinneret Academic College
- ORT Braude College of Engineering, Karmiel
- Azrieli College of Engineering, Jerusalem
- Sapir Academic College
- Max Stern Academic College of Emek Yezreel
- Zefat Academic College, Safed
- Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yafo
- Tel-Hai Academic College
- Jerusalem College of Technology - Lev Academic Center
- Ruppin Academic Center
- Holon Institute of Technology
- Shenkar College of Engineering and Design, Ramat Gan
The strike does not include junior staff, whose classes will be held as normal.
Junior staff at Beit Berl also on strike
The junior staff at the Beit Berl Academic College has also gone on strike.
Some 450 lecturers, who make up about 60 percent of the teaching staff at the college, reached a labor agreement with the college's administration after two years of negotiations, but it has yet to be approved by the Council for Higher Education's Planning and Budgeting Committee.
The junior staff is employed as outside lecturers and gets paid only for the hours they teach in class. They are under short seven-month contracts, which mean they face dismissal every year, have no job security, cannot accumulate seniority and have no prospects of advancement.
"We identify with the just struggle of the senior stuff in colleges, while at the same time we are escalating our own struggle," said Hillel Roman, a member of the junior staff union at Beit Berl and teaches art at the college.
"The entire junior staff in the college is going on strike, which means most classes will be canceled, and we will not attend meetings or take part in any other academic activity. We hope this helps remind the administration of the junior staff's contribution to the college, despite the pitiful conditions we are employed under. We don't understand why the administration is not working to implement the agreement it has already signed. We have no intention of allowing this, and we will remain on strike until the college administration keeps its promises."
