Associated Press Report HONOLULU (AP) — Negotiators for the state and the Hawaii State Teachers Association were expected to return to the bargaining table Monday afternoon in hopes of ending a public schoolteachers strike that has dragged on for 19
Associated Press Report
HONOLULU (AP) — Negotiators for the state and the Hawaii State Teachers Association were expected to return to the bargaining table Monday afternoon in hopes of ending a public schoolteachers strike that has dragged on for 19 days.
Meanwhile, teachers, wearing white, red or green union t-shirts, were back on the picket lines at the schools as more than 2,000 gathered at a rally at the State Capitol.
The HSTA Board of Directors spent the weekend reviewing an informal proposal presented by Gov. Ben Cayetano.
Education officials said they are considering ways to make up for lost class time for 180,000 students, including canceling field trips.
“But I think we’re now at a point where even doing that doesn’t let you catch up,” Schools Superintendent Paul LeMahieu said Sunday night. “No matter which way you cut it, there’s educational loss in the year.”
The union has booked the Stan Sheriff Center in Honolulu and other sites around the state for every day until Thursday so the 13,000 teachers can vote on any contract settlement.
U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, who helped settle the University of Hawaii faculty strike last week, and former Schools Superintendent Charles Toguchi, a former teacher and close friend of Cayetano, were assisting Yogi.
Cayetano refused to reveal any details of the state’s latest offer. He also declined to make any more predictions about when the strike would end. On Thursday, he said the strike could be over the next day.
After the meeting with the governor Saturday, HSTA Executive Director Joan Husted said the two sides had reached agreement on “concepts, but not the numbers.”
Failure of the two sides to reach agreement on Saturday means Hawaii’s public schools will remain closed at least another day, through Wednesday. The Department of Education had said schools would be open to students on Tuesday if a contract was ratified on Sunday.
The two sides are under pressure to settle because U.S. District Judge David Ezra has threatened to step in. Ezra will hold a hearing Tuesday on a motion asking him to appoint a receiver over the school system to restore special-education services that have been cut off by the strike.
Ezra has the authority to intervene because of the Felix consent decree, which orders the state to improve services to special needs students by December.
The major sticking point reportedly is retroactive pay for teachers. The union says teachers should be paid for the two years they have worked without a contract.
Cayetano points out that no other public employee union has received retroactive pay.
In the last offers made public, the union had called for raises totaling $187 million, while the state proposed $93 million in raises.
