University strike looms as talks fail

Nearly 500 students, faculty members protest near Knesset; negotiations collapse with no results.

By ABE SELIG
University 224.88 (photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski [file])
University 224.88
(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski [file])
Fears of a university strike reached a fever pitch Wednesday evening, as nearly 500 students and faculty members protested near the Knesset against the deadlock in talks over funding for the 2008-09 academic year. Negotiations between representatives of the Finance Ministry and university heads collapsed on Wednesday evening with no results. "We expect the Israeli government to do everything it can to ensure that the academic year begins on time," said National Union of Israeli Students head Boaz Toporovsky as he stood on the road leading up to the Knesset on Wednesday evening. "There has been a little movement on both sides, but it hasn't been enough." Hebrew University President Prof. Menachem Magidor told the crowd, "This is the future of the State of Israel we're talking about. The contribution of higher education to the country is immense, and everything should be done to fix this issue so the academic year begins on time." Lying at the heart of contention between the Finance Ministry and the Council of University Presidents (CUP) is a NIS 480-million funding increase the CUP has set as a condition for starting the year. The universities have cited the government's own Shochat Committee recommendation that NIS 2.4 billion be poured into the higher education system over a period of five years. The Shochat Committee was established in 2006 to examine the future of higher education in Israel, and the CUP considers its recommendations binding. After Wednesday night's protest was dispersed, with police detaining two students who managed to break into the Knesset plaza, the two sides gave it another shot. They sat down to what was meant to be a marathon meeting to hammer out an agreement, but which ended up finishing just 30 minutes after it began. CUP sources said that only moments after negotiations started, Finance Ministry officials said they were not going to approve NIS 480m. to the higher education system. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is scheduled to meet with Education Minister Yuli Tamir and Finance Minister Ronnie Bar-On on Thursday to make a final attempt at circumventing an impending strike. It is widely believed that Olmert's personal intervention may be the last hope to resolve the crisis, since the premier told the Knesset on Tuesday he would do everything in his power to avert a university strike. Tamir told a Knesset Finance Committee meeting on Wednesday morning that it would be a "disaster" if the academic year did not open on schedule. Tamir went on to accuse the Treasury of "dragging its feet" in the negotiations with the Council for Higher Education's Planning and Budgeting Committee on the budget for Israel's institutions of higher learning. In response, the Finance Ministry released a statement calling the education minister a "hypocrite." "She was not present at any of those talks. She is the one that signed the Shochat Committee's report and is not honoring her own decisions," the statement said. The various sides had met on Tuesday in an attempt to bridge financial disagreements after a nearly two-week impasse in talks, but representatives of the CUP left the meeting just an hour after it started, claiming the talks had reached a deadlock. All sides have continuously charged each other with adding additional demands to the negotiating process. A spokeswoman for the CUP told The Jerusalem Post that "the talks have become so complicated, it's hard to say what the main difficulties are anymore."