UH faculty fight goes online

While University of Hawai’i faculty union leaders met with state representatives and a federal mediator earlier this week, UH administrators put the finishing touches on a Web site designed to provide up-to-date contract negotiation information to the system’s students and educators.

With UH students out of classes for spring break, and the University of Hawai’i Professional Assembly’s strike date set for April 5, the university has set up a location on the Internet that UH spokesman Jim Manke said is designed to answer commonly asked questions and relay late-breaking developments to students, employees, faculty and the general public.

In addition to the Web site (www.hawaii.edu/strike), UH administrators have set up two telephone numbers that Manke said has already been updated three times since being established on Monday. To supplement the local number for O’ahu residents (956-4560), they have also set up a toll-free number for neighbor island and mainland residents at (866) 898-5161.

Manke said he doesn’t expect many additions to the site or phone recording later this week, but that this week’s mediation might necessitate a change.

“Tomorrow morning, we’ll be checking to see if there’s any change,” he said Tuesday afternoon. “But there’s probably not going to be a lot of change until Monday.”

The main purpose of the informational system, Manke said, is to quell rumors that commonly appear during labor talks and prospective strikes. The fact that a walk-out could affect student schedules can make the situation even worse sometimes, he said.

“We’ve had calls from parents planning for commencement travel, and they’re naturally anxious over whether their children are going to complete the courses they need,” he said.

Questions on the Web site and “hotline” address the possibility of situations such as semesters being canceled, tuition being refunded and how to show support for UHPA members.

“The answer to a lot of the questions we get is, ‘It depends, if the strike happens at all,'” Manke said.

Many consequences and effects will not be known until the strike begins, Manke said, and even more will rely on how long the strike lasts.

According to current plans, student teachers and those in medical residencies should still report to their assignments because the faculty needed for such programs have been included among those deemed “essential” and forbidden from striking, Manke said.

“There’s fewer than 150 of those,” Manke said. “But it’s basically the people who supervise the medical residencies. There’s a few others here and there.”

On the faculty portion of the Web site, faculty members on strike are told that their health fund benefits will continue if they pay their premiums, but that service credits and death benefits “may not be paid” if the educators choose to strike.

“The operative word is ‘may,'” Manke said. “It’s kind of decided on a case-by-case basis.”

Although he hadn’t yet seen the Web site, UHPA executive director J.N. Musto said the information distributed by the university was the same anti-faculty message of Governor Ben Cayetano.

“It’s full of lies, misperceptions and half-truths designed to threaten our members and scare UH students,” he said. “It galls us that the UH administration is copping those issues directly from Governor Cayetano.”

Musto said the revoking of faulty death benefits was concurrent with Cayetano’s threats to pull all benefits if teachers stage a strike.

“That’s absolutely insane,” he said.” “We are going to fight that tooth and nail.”

With the strike scheduled to begin April 5 — the same day the 13,000 members of the Hawai’i State Teachers Association are scheduled to walk out of the state’s public schools — Musto said the state has threatened to pull out of federal mediation because of the UHPA decision to strike.

“It almost ended already,” he said. “No one really knows what’s going to happen right now.”

Staff writer Matt Smylie can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 226) and mailto:msmylie@pulitzer.net