Government, teachers’ union announce 5-year salary agreement
New deal includes retroactive grant and raises for teachers, principals and specialized staff; agreement allows for trial run of ‘individual contracts’ for some new hires
Gavriel Fiske is a reporter at The Times of Israel
An agreement has been signed between the government and the Secondary Schools Teachers Association, the Education Ministry announced Monday, ending months of deadlocked negotiations that saw the union, which represents Israel’s high-school teachers, engage in a weeklong strike at the beginning of the school year in September.
The agreement, which will be in place for the next five years, “will ensure peace and stability for the education system and stop the sanctions and strikes. The education system will return to full activity,” the ministry said in announcing the successful end to negotiations.
The teachers’ strike, which delayed the beginning of the school year for some 514,000 high school students in grades 10-12, was called off after a week as public pressure grew against the move. The teachers returned to school, but were instructed not to submit grades or sponsor activities outside of school grounds as negotiations continued.
Talks between the long-time head of the association, Ran Erez, and the education and finance ministries had stalled for months. One of the main sticking points was the government’s push to allow individual contracts for teachers, a move staunchly opposed by the union.
Both sides appeared to have shown compromise on that issue, as the agreement allows for a multiyear pilot program in which some new teachers or counselors can be hired under individual contracts instead of the usual collective union agreement.
However, “the arrangement will not continue if the teachers union decides that the pilot was not successful,” the union said.
Under the new agreement, full-time teachers are to receive a one-time grant of some NIS 9,600 ($2,538), depending on their position. This grant is based on a salary increase that was to have been implemented during the last school year but was canceled by the government after the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023.
In addition, full-time teachers are to receive a salary increase of NIS 1,200-2,000 ($315-530) per month, depending on their position — also something that was agreed upon last year but not implemented due to the war.
The agreement also includes “dedicated salary increases” of an unspecified amount for principals, vice principals, counselors, special education teachers and other staff with specialized roles, the announcement said.
Other aspects of the agreement include an additional one hour per week of classroom teaching for full-time teachers, reducing time that had been set aside for individual tutoring by one hour, and a system by which individual school principals can “define new positions that will be dedicated to the unique needs of their school, and determine the compensation for them.”
The agreement also includes a provision whereby teachers who participated in the September strike will be compensated by the ministry for up to five days of missed work. During the strike, the union had said that it would provide an economic safety net for striking teachers, including grants for missed days and interest-free loans.
A plan desired by the Finance Ministry to streamline and shorten the procedure for firing teachers was not included in the final agreement, the teachers union said.
The agreement came after a Sunday mini-strike of high school students organized by the National Student and Youth Council, who walked out in protest of the continued sanctions imposed by the teachers union as negotiations continued — particularly the withholding of grades.
The Monday announcement of the agreement came as schools in Israel’s north were shuttered for the second day in a row due to increased rocket fire from Hezbollah in Lebanon. The school closures in the north, announced for a renewable 24-hour period each evening by the Education Ministry, in conjunction with the Home Front Command, are expected to last for some time as Israel expands operations against Hezbollah.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
