HSTA President: We Just Want To Negotiate
07/12/2011
Hawaii State Teachers Association
The Hawaii State Teachers Association's legal complaint against the state is really simple, says President Wil Okabe: "We want to bargain in good faith."
The union on Friday filed a prohibited practice complaint against Gov. Neil Abercrombie, schools Superintendent Kathryn Matayoshi and their labor negotiators. The 37-page document lists a number of accusations against the state, all of which add up to one bottom line, Okabe told Civil Beat: The state interfered with the union's right to bargain collectively by preemptively deserting negotiations and communicating Hawaii's "last, best and final" offer directly to teachers after HSTA negotiators rejected it.
On June 24, six days before teachers' two-year contract expired, Matayoshi and Abercrombie went public with their plan to impose new employment terms on the state's 12,500 teachers without union approval. The Hawaii Department of Education one day earlier had sent a similar announcement to teachers, along with an explanation of the new terms, including a 1.5 percent salary schedule reduction, directed leave without pay on certain non-instructional days, and an increased employee contribution to health insurance premiums. The new employment terms went into effect on July 1.
The union isn't taking issue with the terms themselves at this point, but with the way they were imposed, said Okabe. The state usurped the union's right to negotiate an agreement, he said, and teachers' right to vote on it. He contends that if the state's behavior in this case is upheld, it could permanently strip labor unions of their rights in Hawaii and across the nation.
