Universities ganging up to prevent Weizmann Institute workers organizing

By Ruth Sinai

In an unprecedented move, Tel Aviv University's administration demanded that a university legal clinic stop representing workers seeking to unionize at the Weizmann Institute. The clinic therefore decided to transfer the case to an outside lawyer, so as not to harm the workers' efforts.

The affair began when workers at the Davidson Institute, which is part of Weizmann, decided to join the Koach La'Ovdim union. The university refused to recognize the union, prompting demonstrations by the workers, at which some were beaten by university guards. One of the demonstrators suffered a broken knee.

Following this incident, the Davidson Institute's chairman, Prof. Haim Harari, wrote to Tel Aviv's rector, Prof. Dan Leviatan, to protest the legal clinic's involvement. Prof. Israel Bar-Joseph, Weizmann's vice president, said that this was a personal appeal by Harari; the university itself "didn't ask for anything and didn't write anything." But other sources involved in the affair said that Weizmann's president, Prof. Daniel Zajfman, also asked Tel Aviv to order the clinic to drop the case.

The clinic, which was established to provide hands-on experience for law students, published a notice on its Web site saying it had been "pressured" to stop representing the Weizmann workers. "In our view, this pressure constitutes inappropriate interference in academic freedom, infringement on lawyer-client relationships and infringement on the workers' right to organize," it said.

According to the clinic's deputy director, attorney Dori Spivak, the dean of Tel Aviv's law school, Prof. Hanoch Dagan, had rejected Harari's plea and authorized the clinic to continue representing the workers. However, the clinic decided that it was best to drop the case, lest the spat over its involvement distract attention from the main issue - namely, the workers' right to unionize.

A Tel Aviv University spokeswoman said that Leviatan considers it wrong for one university to intervene in another's affairs by siding with workers against the administration, and "as rector, it's his job to express his opinion on academic issues.

" According to Prof. Alon Harel of Hebrew University, "this is the first time in the history of the clinics in this country that a university administration has thwarted a clinic's decision to sue another body. This precedent is liable to undermine the autonomy the clinics enjoy."

Letter from Parliament : Knesset Member. Haim (Jumas) Oron

19 of November, 2008
(translated from Hebrew by Yarden Hochman)

Vice president of Weizmann Institution of science,
Gad Kover - Gad.Kober@weizmann.ac.il

Hello,

The topic: The organization of the workers of the Science garden in the Weizmann Institution

I address you on this issue following an appeal from workers in the Science garden in the Weizmann Institution.

From this appeal it is understood that the workers decided to realize their right to organize in order to better their employment conditions. According to what the workers of the science garden say, those who deal with instructing tours, administration work and cleaning - are employed in discriminating personal contracts, do not gain the collective contract valid to most workers of the institution and are exposed to a hurting employment frame such as delayed payment, partial payment and more. To the best of my knowledge, this organizing is done by a workers union called "Power to the workers", whose goal is to initiate organizations of workers across the Country.

The workers claim that the Weizmann institution management refuses to acknowledge their organizing and to conduct negotiations with it, conspires against the organized workers, denies them from working until they give up their struggle, terminated the tours to the museum and also denies some of them from entering the institution's grounds.
Following this, the workers commenced protesting actions including weekly demonstrations in the university's entrance.

Also arises from the appeal that in the 16th of November, 2008, security guards attacked five workers from the scientific garden and social activists that wanted to protest the management's attitude towards them in front of the board of trustees which assembled there, this happened before they managed to get to the science garden. One protester was beaten so badly that his knee was broken and he required surgery. The police was summoned to the place and hindered the protesters without attending the wounded.

I turn to you in plea to check why the Weizmann Institution management uses such difficult methods, which include the use of violence from the security guards and means of hurting the subsistence, against the workers organization which asks to fulfill it's rights by law.
Also, I will ask to check the reasons for which the institution's management refuses to acknowledge the organization that represents the workers of the Science garden, which is composed of university students and youths who try, through the way of organizing, to improve their employment conditions.

I will be pleased if you inspect this subject as soon as possible and update me.

With best regards,
M.K. Haim (Jumas) Oron