Municipalities, high school teachers strike over 'damaging' national budget

The Federation of Local Authorities in Israel and the High School Teachers Union will strike Thursday to protest the government’s budgetary plans for the public education system, as the government is set to meet Thursday morning to approve the state’s budget for 2023-2024.

The federation announced that no municipal services will be provided, including education (with the exception of special needs education), school bus services, school security services, welfare, infrastructure, cleaning and trash collection.

All of the large municipalities said they would join the strike, except for Jerusalem, which will function as usual.

Education Ministry Director-General Assaf Tselal wrote in a letter to district education heads that schools could not operate unless they had independent security arrangements. While the strike’s initial plan was to hold a shortened school day that would end at 11:45 a.m., the Education Ministry decided that schools will not be able to function properly and therefore would close. Principals who wished to hold classes via videoconference could do so.The federation, in a press release, listed 10 parts of the budget it viewed as unsatisfactory.

These include the lack of reform to increase the number of preschool assistants by improving their terms of employment; the fact that the budget did not include a provision for building classrooms, with 100,000 students studying in portable classrooms; that, contrary to the primary school teachers who reached a long-term salary agreement with the previous government, the negotiations with the high school teachers union was dragging on endlessly; and that the government was not advancing five-year plans to develop Arab, Druze and Circassian local authorities, which is “critical for shrinking economic and social gaps.”

The emergency discussion

Federation of Local Authorities in Israel CEO and Mayor of Modi’in Haim Bibas held an “emergency discussion” with approximately 200 mayors, in which he said that “unfortunately, in the government there is no responsible adult to manage the event.”

“If the Finance Ministry would have invested as many resources in conducting negotiations as it did in creating conflicts we would have an excellent education system,” Bibas said.“We held meetings and gave warnings. But the Finance Ministry does not care that hundreds of preschools are closing every day for lack of staff; it is not interested in the fact that children are studying in portable classrooms.... We are in the last moments before the budget will pass and we will not give in,” Bibas said.High School Teachers Union CEO Ran Erez announced that his organization would join the strike due to unsuccessful talks with the Finance Ministry regarding a new collective salary agreement.

An ongoing dispute

Last year saw a prolonged dispute between the government and primary teachers union over the conditions within the education system, with the latter threatening to strike on the first day of school unless those conditions were improved.

Headlining the union’s complaints were the remarkably low wages that teachers here receive. According to an OECD report, Israel’s teachers are among the lowest-paid education workers of all OECD countries – despite, as a result of Israel’s six-day school week, they work more hours than average.

A lack of teaching staff was also cited among the union’s main concerns. At the end of July 2022, the Education Ministry announced that Israel faces a shortage of almost 6,000 teachers. Experts suggested that one of the contributions to this shortage was the prohibitively low wages offered to new teachers.

The weeks-long debacle ended with an underwhelming deal: a minimum salary increase for all teachers of at least NIS 1,100, balanced out by a decrease in the stipend awarded to teachers who remain in the system for three years – from NIS 24,000 to NIS 10,000. As well, the deal included slightly increased flexibility for mothers working within the education system, and the adjustment of teachers’ vacation day schedules.