[etni] strike???

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http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/377255.html

Mon., December 29, 2003 Tevet 4, 5764

Last Update: 29/12/2003 13:41 
 
Livnat, Netanyahu to meet with council heads to avert strike   
 
By Anshel Pfeffer and Relly Sa'ar, Haaretz Correspondents 
 
 
 
Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Education Minister Limor Livnat are due 
to meet with leaders of the Union of Local Authorities on Monday evening, in an 
effort to prevent a strike slated to start Tuesday throughout the entire school 
system. 
 
 
 
 
In an unusual move, the strike is also set to include special education, which 
usually continues to operate during ordinary school strikes.

Local authorities declared the strike due to a NIS 500 million cut in their 
education budgets that is included in the proposed 2004 state budget.

On Tuesday, the two teacher unions announced they would not join the strike, 
and teachers would show up at schools as usual. However, the local authorities 
provide all the ancillary services necessary for schools to run - busing, 
security guards, administrators, secretaries, janitors and kindergarten 
assistants. Suspension of these services means that the schools will be closed.

Yossi Wasserman, general-secretary of a teachers' union which represents 
elementary and middle school teachers, said Monday that the teachers "identify 
with the struggle of local council leaders who are in financial ruin due to the 
harsh cut in the education budget." However, Wasserman said that this was not 
the right time for a teachers' strike, despite the fact that teachers are 
"financially and legally prepared for an extended struggle and strike if it 
turns out that the Education Ministry is planning on cutting teachers' pay and 
conditions."

According to Wasserman, teachers will arrive at school as usual on Tuesday. "If 
there will be no security services [at the school], teachers will not teach as 
usual, but will receive the pupils in the school," Wasserman said, and added 
that if the strike continued, teachers would decide each day whether to join 
the strike.

The Education Ministry also announced Sunday that it will not permit the school 
day to proceed if there is no security, and added that the local council's 
decision to include the special education programs in the scope of the strike, 
was the crossing of a "red line."

Ministry of Education Director General Ronit Tirosh called on local council 
heads to leave the special education out of the planned strike during a phone 
call with Adi Eldar, the chairman of the Union of Local Authorities.

The NIS 500 million cut in education funding includes a NIS 40 million 
reduction in state subsidies for school busing - which the local authorities 
are obligated by law to provide for all students who live more than 5 
kilometers from a school - and a NIS 220 million cut in state financing for 
secretaries, janitors and other administrative personnel, which the local 
authorities cannot compensate for through dismissals or pay cuts, because these 
employees are protected via collective wage agreements. In addition, the 
Education Ministry will no longer provide any financing for renovations and 
repairs of schools and kindergartens.
 

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