Israel high school strike to continue for 2 months

A strike being held by Israeli high school teachers could continue for another two months, Chairman of the Secondary Schools Teachers Association, Ran Erez, said yesterday.

“For the moment, as far as we’re concerned, summer vacation is extended for a few days, it’s not the end of the world,” Erez told Ynet News.

Erez said of all the education ministers he had worked with, Yoav Kisch is “the weakest of them all. He doesn’t have the capability, he doesn’t even understand his job.”

Erez, who has served as head of the teachers’ union since 1997, criticised what he described as the parents’ “silence”, saying “this should be important to the Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich, as well as to the Minister of Education and the parents. I don’t know how the parents are silent. They are trying to harm the children’s future. I can’t stand all the media tricks in this government’s poison machine.”

More than half a million Israeli high school students have been out of school since Sunday following the union’s announcement of a strike, while no progress has been made in negotiations between the union and the Finance and Education Ministries.

The finance ministry agreed to raise teachers’ salaries on the condition of bringing changes to the education system, including that teachers and school principals work under personal employment contracts. The union, however, opposes employing teachers under personal contracts, without subjecting this to a collective agreement and conditions that protect workers’ rights.

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