Court halts teachers’ strike, orders schools to open at 9 a.m.

The Tel Aviv District Labor Court on Tuesday ordered a stop to a strike by teachers, telling educators at kindergartens and elementary and middle schools to return to their classrooms for a 9 a.m. start. The strike action would have seen the schools closed until 11 a.m.

The Teachers’ Union on Monday announced the partial “warning” strike in an opening salvo over allegations that thousands of teachers did not receive their full salary last month.

“The Israeli government should be embarrassed,” the Teachers’ Union said in a post on Facebook, adding that under an ongoing reform program at the Education Ministry there were still several outstanding issues regarding teacher compensation and travel expenses.

“Thousands of teachers have been seriously harmed,” the union said.

Speaking on Army Radio on Tuesday morning, Finance Ministry Director-General Shai Babad accused the head of the Teacher’s Union, Yaffa Ben-David, of using the strike for publicity.

“This is a scandal caused by personal interest,” he said.

The government condemned the move, which came just two days after students return to class following the week-long Hanukkah break.

“The education and finance ministries view the decision very seriously,” the ministries said in a joint statement. “The decision is aggressive, arbitrary and reckless.”

Special education institutions were not affected by the strike.

Two weeks ago the education system was also disrupted as many municipalities went on strike over budgetary cuts.

In October, hundreds of teachers demonstrated outside the Education Ministry in Tel Aviv over the failure to pay their full salaries in September.

At that time Education Minister Naftali Bennett vowed that the problem of irregular salary payments, which has been ongoing for 20 years, would be solved during his term as education minister.