Some schools open after judge cuts teachers’ strike short by an hour
Labor court rejects government request for injunction to stop action, but thousands of staff call in sick, keeping many schools shut
A labor court on Sunday ordered that a teachers’ strike that left hundreds of thousands of children at home end an hour earlier than planned, with kindergartens and schools opening at 10 a.m.
The strike shuttered preschools, elementary schools, and middle schools, but special education institutions were not affected.
However, an estimated 25,000 teaching staff called in sick nationwide, the Kan public broadcaster reported, forcing many education institutions to remain closed even though the official strike ended.
The figure represents some 10 percent of teachers and kindergarten staff, the report said.
The unofficial action was said to impact kindergartens and schools in Rishon Lezion, Beersheba, Tel Aviv, Kfar Saba, Holon, and Givatayim, among other places.
The Israel Teachers Union had announced on Friday that it would strike until 11 a.m., a measure taken to protest the surprise 3.3 percent drop in government salaries for April amid the war in Gaza.
“It is a legitimate strike that would be permitted in a limited way,” the court ruled. It had earlier proposed that the strike end at 9 a.m. and that negotiations be restarted.
The court ordered that all the parties continue negotiations and that teachers take no further job action while the talks are being held.
Education Minister Yoav Kisch said he fully supports the teachers in their campaign but that there should be no action as long as negotiations are in progress.
Union chief Yaffa Ben David told Kan, “We are not weakened, we will take the struggle all the way.”
In a statement to the media, Ben David put the blame upon Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
“You can choose to fix things, or be remembered as the one who signed off on the collapse of public education in Israel,” Ben David said.
The Finance Ministry, meanwhile, threatened not to pay those who participated in the strike or called in sick for the time they missed, the Ynet outlet reported.
Ephraim Malkin, head of Wages and Labor in the Treasury, sent a letter to the Education Ministry and local authorities instructing them not to pay workers “who are absent or who are prevented from carrying out their work due to participation in the strike.”
He further specified that “an education worker who is absent from work in these days due to reporting sick during the strike will not be eligible for a salary during the period of absence from work.”
“Teachers deserve compensation for the reduction in salary,” Kisch said in a post to his X account. “The Finance Ministry has been behaving outrageously so far in the negotiations with the teachers’ union.”
Kisch said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be involved in the coming negotiations, to be held Sunday at the Prime Minister’s Office with Smotrich present. Under those circumstances, Kisch, who will also be at the talks, said he felt it would not be right for the teachers to take further action.
The strike began on Friday in an unofficial manner, with hundreds of kindergarten teachers calling in sick, leading preschools around the country to be closed since not enough substitutes could be found.
The teachers undertook the action to circumvent an injunction issued by a regional labor court against a strike planned by the Teachers Union for Friday.
The ministries of finance and education were aware that teachers would call in sick, the Haaretz daily reported at the time. The Finance Ministry requested that the Education Ministry not recognize the absences as sick days and that the teachers’ salaries be docked accordingly.
The Education Ministry had opposed the unofficial measure, saying in a statement: “There is no room for slowdowns in the education system. If a kindergarten teacher doesn’t report to work for this reason, the absence will be considered unjustified, with all that that implies.”
As part of cost-saving measures introduced to the 2025 budget, public-sector wages were cut by 3.3% from the beginning of April.
The move will see full-time teachers’ wages drop by NIS 300-800 ($83-$220) a month. It is expected to save the government NIS 1.2 billion ($331,134,000) over the next two years.
The Times of Israel Community.