Yes Bary, your calculations are correct! They want us to work more for less pay per hour! The way I see it, we are better off without the pay increase offered if we have to work more hours. Let them just add the hours they cut, allow us to teach smaller class and I will feel that we have achieved something. M. Mendelkern ----- Original Message ----- From: Bari Nirenberg To: Etni Sent: Friday, November 23, 2007 9:07 AM Subject: [etni] trying to understand... According to what I've just read on Ynet (http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3474694,00.html), the finance ministry has offered us an eventual 26% increase in salary in exchange for an additional frontal teaching hour for each class plus an additional hour in small groups of about five students (as I understand it, that's per class). So if you work 24 hours (including gmulim -- that's less than 24 frontal hours) and teach 5 classes, you'll be teaching an additional 10 hours a week. According to my fairly good math skills, that's about a 42% increase in hours. So they want to pay us 26% more and have us work 42% more? And keep in mind that few high school teachers actually TEACH 24 hours, as our gmulim are included in those hours. In reality, assuming 4 hours per class, we'd be teaching 50% more hours. So have I understood this correctly??? And the joke is that the government doesn't understand why Ran Erez hasn't agreed to this "deal". Bari