Education: Prof. Zvi Hacohen: Out of the ivory tower

Hacohen and his colleagues managed to successfully negotiated the first collective wage agreement for senior faculty in 10 years.

By EHUD ZION WALDOKS
Zvi Hacohen 88 224 (photo credit: Courtesy)
Zvi Hacohen 88 224
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Senior Lecturers Union head Prof. Zvi Hacohen is no firebrand. The Ben-Gurion University of the Negev professor does not inspire with heated rhetoric or create pictures with words. He is withdrawn and reserved in public, adamant but not overheated. Perhaps it is that unyielding quality which enabled him to persevere in the face of enormous pressure to stick to an unpopular choice - the longest professors' strike in the country's history. Students are only now recovering from the effects of the strike, and its reverberations are still being felt. After coming just a hairbreadth from forcing the cancellation of the first semester of the school year, Hacohen and his colleagues managed two impressive achievements. First, they successfully negotiated the first collective wage agreement for senior faculty in 10 years. Having forgone negotiations at the start of the intifada, the professors resumed negotiations as it wound down. When negotiations did not get them anywhere, the professors launched a strike. While many were sympathetic, as the strike dragged on, through the National Labor Court, on TV and in the pages of the newspapers, at rallies up and down the country, the chance of losing that public sympathy increased daily. Hacohen kept to the hard course, refusing insufficient offers, wading through the debate in the National Labor Court and eventually winning the right to strike without back-to-work orders. Having achieved a significant pay raise and a mechanism to eliminate wage erosion, the professors walked away from the negotiating table happy. However, over and above the narrow issue of salaries, the strike brought the plight of higher education squarely into the public spotlight and refused to relinquish it. Newscasts discussed the issue daily. Hacohen led the professors out of the ivory tower and into the streets to make their case to the public. Hacohen's Challenges While Senior Lecturers Union head Prof. Zvi Hacohen might have led a successful strike for higher salaries and to raise awareness to the plight of higher education, the effects of the strike continue. Students are just finishing up their year three months late, having lost their summer vacation and with it the opportunity to work to pay for the coming school year. Moreover, the Finance Ministry claims that the money for professors' salaries must come out of the higher education budget, which has caused part of the severe crunch facing the universities. University presidents say they need NIS 1.8 billion to be able to open the next school year. They have stated repeatedly in recent months that without those funds the university system will collapse. Then there is the issue of the quality of the education they are dispensing. According to Hacohen and his compatriots, the quality of higher education is steadily declining. Classes are bigger and there are about 500 fewer senior lecturers than there were just a few years ago. Basic research is being neglected for lack of funds and more and more doctoral students are accepting more lucrative offers abroad. They warn that the academic engine which powered the hi-tech revolution is rapidly losing steam. It is up to the government and the universities to address this challenge and save advanced higher education from collapse this coming year.