Meeting with The Vice presidents of the Research & Development and the International affairs

 This noon we met with Dan Peer and Milette Shamir, two recipients of our campaign on the post doc issues.

Among the participants, there were 9 people, of which 4 were postdocs. The meeting went smooth, with an adult and welcoming attitude from both sides.

After a brief explanation on the conditions of the post docs and the step we took to start this initiative, we highlighted the most important demands and core issues:

• Compensation for the raise of the CPI for the postdocs, especially for the ones who are leaving soon before the next academic year.
• Need to raise the basic level (100%) of the scholarship for post docs and also other scholars.
• Need to have more transparency on the guidelines and the obligation for the postdocs in their scientific project.
• Clearer point of references, rules, suggestions, advertising for opportunities etc...
• Guidance on Maternity leaves, sick leaves, vacation leaves
• References to the body who can represent the working rights and the administrative or didactical issues
• An improvement on the welfare and the healthcare policies (i.e. for specific conditions, or spouse and children care etc...)
• An attentive approach to the new olim and the spouses of an Israeli citizen, since they are facing  particular challenges.

After the statements of these points, the first (and good) piece of news is that the administration is aware of the need to increase the basic level of the scholarship amid the CPI increase. Therefore, there was an agreement to increase the scholarships of all of the scholars (from master students to postdocs) to a percentage that is higher than the inflation rate calculated on this period, in particular in comparison with the score in September, which is estimated to be 3.8%.

Click here to see the trends of the inflation.

This means that there will be a certain (in their opinion "substantial") increase in each one's scholarship from the next academic year, therefore October 2023. In particular, postdocs are entitled to have HIGHER increase because their scholarship basic level hasn't changed in years and so far it is very similar to the (legal) minimum salary in Israel, which is 5,723 shekels, but without pension and benefits.

Unfortunately, the administration is NOT keen on giving any compensation to the CPI increase to the outgoing postdoc who will leave the country before October. Given this negative answer, we are planning to design a kind of "forfeit benefit" for the ones who are leaving that should be provided by the PI. In this sense, we will try to invite the PIs to endorse this strategy and to morally bind to it.

On the transparency point, the VPs realized that there are systematical issues for which the necessary information is not clear or easily reached. In this case, they will work on improving this lack. In particular, since there is a kind of "guidelines & agreement" document, we asked to be able to see it and to specify some conditions, such as the sick and maternity leaves, a specific health chronical issue, the possibility to work outside the university and the termination of the project (a topic that is very sad to think about, but needs attention as for now there are no legal boundaries on it!).

When asked about the equalization of the postdoc scholarships between Israeli and Internationals scholars, they said that this is not realistic, in the sense that it won't happen that they will increase the scholarships to 200% regardless of the nationality, although they acknowledge that it is not the ideal situation.

Instead, they suggested us to look for external scholarships that could help coping with the cost of life. They told us that the PIs receive frequently a series of proposals for scholarships and grants, and some of them can be relevant to the scholars. Then, asking your PI to share this information and referring to someone in order to prepare a grant to get these external scholarships is definitely worth it! This bureaucracy in part depends on the faculty and the head of the schools: in some faculty, there are facilitators for proposing a grant and support throughout the process.

Considering the heterogeneous needs of the International community, for specific situations we can contact professor Neta Ziv, the Vice President for Equity, Diversity and Community. Neta has a curriculum in law and human rights, therefore she could help in all of the issues related to the legal aspects of things such as handicap and disabilities, but also women and so on...

Last but not least, we addressed also the hardship we encounter when it comes to find accommodation in Tel Aviv. Their reply was encouraging: in the next future, Broshim will have other two buildings and there is a network of bids and offers being created for the housing of the scholars in TAU. The concept is to create something like the "Whiteboard" / Marketplace that our community already has and make it more professional and enlarged to all of the students in TAU.

As far as the Visa management is concerned, we decided not to address this thing to the VPs as we already know that, after the end of the "Passport Marathon" (in September), TAU international is gradually bringing the Visa Renewal Process on campus, which means it will be easier and shorter.

On the "new olim and the spouses of Israeli citizens" we did not have much time to speak about it, but Milette is definitely interested to have some more information about it, so if this is your case, share with us your story!

This is what we got for now. Nevertheless, we are still thinking of strategies to achieve what we did not so far, or to address specific issues that we haven't spoken about yet.

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