Schools throughout Israel shut down today as the teachers unions called a one-day strike to back their pay demands. The teachers are due to return to their classrooms tomorrow while their union representatives continue negotiations with government officials over the Etzioni Commission report on teachers pay and conditions.
The negotiations broke down only three days after they began. The government had committed itself to implement the Etzioni recommendations, but gradually. For the present, the government is offering the teachers pay rises that would cover the “erosion” that has affected their salaries in recent years. The teachers, for their part, demand a much fuller implementation of the Etzioni pay recommendations. The government countered that fuller implementation would trigger a wave of pay demands and industrial unrest throughout the economy.
The teachers pay issue in effect led to the call by Premier Menachem Begin’s government for early elections. When former Finance Minister Yigal Hurwitz resigned rather than support the government’s commitment-in-principle to implement the Etzioni recommendations, Begin lost his Knesset majority. A teachers’ strike was averted at the time by Education Minister Zevulun Hammer’s undertaking that talks would be held with the teachers on the implementation pledge.
The teachers’ leaders warned today that the one-day strike would be followed by longer walk-outs if the government did not come up with more generous terms.
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