Tamir: Teachers are right to protest conditions

By JPOST.COM STAFF
Education Minister Yuli Tamir on Sunday expressed her support for the struggle of teachers and university lecturers regarding their employment conditions, Army Radio reported. "We can't expect that a teacher will come and work and give all he has under the conditions that the State of Israel is giving its teachers," she said. Speaking at the Herzliya Conference in the IDC in Herzliya, Tamir surprised her audience by saying that "the academic staff is correct in its claims. We need to begin negotiations with the staff, and we need to make commitments in their presence. Salary agreements can change only through negotiations with the staff itself." Lecturers were holding a one-day strike on Sunday in protest of the slow progress toward a work agreement, as well as the threat of privatization of higher education through the establishment of the Shochat Committee.