Senior Lecturers Union: No progress in negotiations to end strike

By HAVIV RETTIG GUR
Despite "slight advances" in negotiations between senior lecturers and university presidents this week "nothing is seriously moving" regarding the five-week-old lecturers strike, said Senior Lecturers Union chairman Prof. Zvi Hacohen on Thursday. The negotiations are over a mechanism for compensating lecturers for wage erosion in the future, but the SLU wants immediate compensation for erosion over the past six years, which the union believes has cost lecturers some 30% of their real income. The meeting is expected between all five to the dispute, the Finance Ministry, Education Ministry, Committee of University Presidents and the SLU on Sunday morning, but the SLU is not optimistic that the meeting will bear fruit. "We've yet to hear from the finance ministry even about the small gains made with the CUP," said Hacohen. Progress has also been stopped on negotiations between high school teachers and government representatives despite Tuesday's court ruling ordering teachers back to work by December 13.