Hebrew University, Har HaZofim
Hebrew University, Har HaZofimFlash90

Hebrew University of Jerusalem's junior staff will be striking from Sunday until further notice, they announced Saturday night, due to a series of scheduled layoffs in the ever-shrinking Humanities department. 

The strike will be held across all HUJI campuses and will include the final week of the Spring 2015 semester. Some 80 junior staff members were due to be fired at the end of the year, a move which follows several consecutive years of budget cuts. 

In addition, the university administration continues to violate agreements signed with the senior and junior staff, including the failure to issue letters of appointment, assigning extra tasks to junior staff without payment, and issues with advancement opportunities. 

"The strike will continue until [HUJI] stops the merry-go-round of  arbitrary dismissals and until we are notified that, in principle, layoffs will be frozen until a comprehensive plan is presented for the Humanities department," the chairman of Moah, the Organization for Teachers and Researchers at Hebrew Universiry, Dr. Esther Sarok, stated. 

"Junior faculty members are not temporary and cheap laborers and the university administration is required to understand that harm to them is a direct hit to their students and future teaching and research at the university."