Labor ministers led by party chairman and Defense Minister Ehud Barak called Thursday for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to become personally involved in ending the semester-long strike by senior academics at the nation’s universities.

The Council of University Presidents voted Wednesday to seek an injunction from the National Labor Court to force the lecturers back into campus classrooms.  Talks between the union and the Finance Ministry over salaries that have dropped in value over the past several years have been deadlocked for months.