By Jennifer Hiller
Advertiser Staff Writer
University of Hawai‘i students across the state yesterday waved signs, marched through the streets and presented the governor with petition signatures in an effort to rescue their academic semester.
Students at several community colleges, UH-West O‘ahu and UH-Hilo walked out of class in protest, and others found time between classes to join demonstrations on their campuses.
At the State Capitol, hundreds of Honolulu Community College students gathered along Beretania Street flashing the shaka sign at passing drivers, cheering and holding signs above their heads that read, "Cayetano please negotiate," "Someone, please do something," and "Why are we being punished?"
The HCC students had marched from their downtown campus to the Capitol in an effort to draw public attention to a possible UH faculty strike.
Tiffany Iiga, 20, a pre-engineering student at HCC, said she was hoping to pressure Gov. Ben Cayetano into settling with the faculty union, which has been without a contract since 1998. "If the teachers go on strike, we’ll be affected," she said. "If they go on strike for more than a week, we lose our credit, our graduation. We’ll be held back a semester."
Mars Ibarra, 24, a liberal arts student at HCC who plans to transfer to the Manoa campus after this semester, said she was concerned that her course work might be invalidated by a strike. "It’s the students who lose," she said.
Cayetano received the 3,000-signature petition students left at his office. "I understand the students’ concerns about completing their education," he said. "They have asked us to reach a fair contract for their professors, and that’s what we are trying to do."
The University of Hawai‘i Professional Assembly, which represents more than 3,100 faculty members, and Cayetano have been at loggerheads since 1998 over faculty pay raises. Recent offers and counteroffers between the two sides have stalled, and the relationship between the two groups seems to have soured further this week.
"I believe the faculty will authorize a strike," said J.N. Musto, executive director of the faculty union. "I believe we have received the last offer of the state."
The faculty union had last offered to accept a two-year contract that would increase salaries by 6 percent each year. The union also offered to give up its lawsuit against a statewide payroll lag, which gradually shifts pay periods forward for a one-time state savings, as well as its demand for a four-year contract retroactive to the expiration of the 1998 agreement.
This week, the state offered a $2,035 across-the-board increase for community college faculty in the first year of the contract and $2,720 in the second year, a 3 percent increase for West O‘ahu, Hilo and Manoa faculty over both years and no increase for lecturer’s fees.
The faculty union initially sought a 14.9 percent increase over four years. Now, Musto said, he thinks the union and state are at an impasse.
Kanani King, a liberal arts student at Windward Community College, said she is worried about what could happen to her plans for a degree and a career in teaching if she loses her credits this semester. "I’ve spent a lot of tears this semester getting through my assignments, and doing it all for nothing is heart-wrenching," she said.
In Hilo, several hundred students gathered at the Mo‘okini Library and marched two miles to deliver a petition of protest to Cayetano’s East Hawai‘i representative, Butch Castro, at the state building.
Koyu Wently of Palau, editor in chief of the UH-Hilo student newspaper, told the gathering, "Uncle Ben is a hypocrite. We have to do something because we all know there will be a strike."
Yesterday’s demonstrations were supported by the Student Caucus, a group of student leaders from every UH campus, and were organized by the student governments on each campus.
Student leaders representing each campus, who delivered the petitions to Cayetano’s office at the Capitol, said they were disappointed they could not speak to the governor in person.
"We were going to be as respectful as possible," said Calvin Keith, student body vice president at HCC. "We just wanted to see him."
Advertiser Staff Writer Hugh Clark contributed to this report.
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