Israel's secondary school teachers will return to work voluntarily today after a two-month strike. A 24-hour negotiation session ended in agreement in principle this morning between the Secondary School Teachers Association, headed by chairman Ran Erez, and the government, represented by Minister of Finance Ronnie Bar-On and Minister of Education Yuli Tamir. The agreement means that the teachers will not be forced to return to the classroom under a Labor Court back-to-work order that was due to come into force today.
The agreement is essentially the one put forward by Histadrut chairman Ofer Eini a month ago and rejected by Erez. Secondary school teachers will receive a 13.5% salary raise spread over three tranches: 5% is the general wage hike for public sector employees, plus an extra 8.5%. Lawyers from the two sides are currently engaged in formulating the full agreement.
The salary hike for the secondary school teachers will cost NIS 810 million a year. The increases for both the primary and secondary school teachers were already included in the education reform.
During the overnight negotiations between the parties' senior officials, but for the first time without Ministry of Finance professional officials, Erez was able to extract more concessions from the ministry's top brass, including substantial pay hike that the professional echelon had previously nixed.
Eini and Histadrut Teachers Union chairman Yossi Wasserman both opposed pay hikes without reform and major concessions by the secondary school teachers because this would render worthless the more comprehensive reform that Wasserman signed.
The secondary school teachers will also receive the two months salaries withheld during the strike. In exchange, the teachers will hold classes during the upcoming Passover vacation and ten days during the summer vacation. The Ministry of Finance is now trying to link the new agreement to the wider education reform signed with the Histadrut Teachers Union.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on December 13, 2007
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