January 15th 2008

Lecturers in Israel Dodge a Bullet (For Now)

Israeli lecturers just dodged a bullet. Yesterday, according to an article in the Jerusalem Post, the head of the Council of University Presidents (CUP) asked a court to issue a injunction to force the country's lecturers to go back to work, and end their 84 day strike. The judge refused the motion made by the head of the CUP, Bar-Ilan University President Professor Moshe Kaveh, but said he would reconsider the motion on January 21st.

If the full-time lecturers do not return to their classrooms soon, university presidents may decide to cancel the first semester of the 2008 academic year. As I have written in earlier blog entries, 40 percent of the faculty at Israeli universities are part-time temporary. These "junior lecturers," as they are referred to, are not represented by the striking Senior Lecturers Union, and have been holding classes since the first day of the Fall semester.

The head of the Senior Lecturers Union, Professor Zvi Hacohen, said that if the court ordered them back into the classroom, the lecturers would respect the court's decision though, of course, some lecturers might resign rather than return to teaching.

Two thoughts:

This is from a January 14th editorial, from the newspaper Haaretz:

...[S]erious problems are developing with respect to higher education and its future. Among these are the reduction in positions at the universities, the declining focus on humanities and research, the closure of departments that are not considered profitable, and failed management that has brought about a worrisome erosion in the level of the institutions in question. One of the most disquieting problems of all involves the employment of "external" staff - junior-level lecturers to whom the universities do not have positions to offer, who work for low pay and under conditions that do not allow them to develop professionally.

The striking senior lecturers, however, have not focused their strike on any issue other than their own salaries, making them appear self-involved and short-sighted. In doing so, they've damaged their own credibility, and quite possibly, alienated the Israeli public. To be sure, demanding higher pay for only themselves, while "junior lecturers" struggle under the inequity that is temporary employment in higher education is just plain dumb.

Posted By Part-Time T. at 8:00 AM

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