Teachers point the finger at Cayetano

By Kevin Dayton
Advertiser Capitol Bureau Chief

Just after dawn Thursday, sixth-grade teacher Harlan Henna began his long walk on the picket line at Keolu School in Kailua with a hand-lettered sign that spoke volumes: "Ben Was My Friend."

Gov. Ben Cayetano uses raises to gain leverage. Advertiser library photo

This strike is personal, and Gov. Ben Cayetano is the personality at the heart of the conflict.

"This is Ben's strike," said Mark Rieben, a teacher at Maunawili Elementary School and a member of the Windward board of directors for the Hawaii State Teachers Association. "The Legislature is ready to fund us, the Board of Education is standing in support of us, so there's only one little bump in the road, and that's him."

After months of contentious negotiations over pay raises, more than 12,000 teachers at more than 250 schools walked out of their classrooms four days ago and forced the closure of Hawai'i's public schools. Coupled with a strike by more than 3,100 faculty members at the University of Hawai'i, it is the first time that strikes have shut down a state's entire system of public education.

There were warning signs from the governor's office that a confrontation was coming. Apart from Cayetano's famous in-your-face political style, in his second and final term as governor he has stepped up his demands on the powerful unions that represent Hawai'i's public employees.

To many teachers, the strike of 2001 is a classic labor-management confrontation over dollars and cents. The teachers sought raises of up to 22 percent over four years, citing the difficulty of recruitment and retention as proof their pay is too low. The two sides were almost always $100 million or more apart in their proposals.

For Cayetano, the money is a tool he can use to achieve change. As he put it last month: "I wouldn't want to give a pay raise and keep everything the same. It just doesn't make any sense."

Cayetano has argued for years that it isn't enough for the state to agree to new contracts that merely boost public worker pay because that means the state receives the same work at a greater cost.

As an example of the kind of agreement he wants, Cayetano proudly cites the 1997 teachers' contract. That year, the teachers' union agreed to work seven additional classroom days a year. In exchange, the state granted the teachers 17 percent pay increases.

But many teachers weren't satisfied by the 1997 agreement.

"A lot of teachers felt we were barely breaking even with the pay raise after you factored in the seven extra school days," said James Au, the strike picket captain and a sixth-grade language arts and social studies teacher at Wahiawa Middle School.

Au's co-worker Rose Yonamine, a seventh-grade social studies teacher, agreed that teachers' unhappiness with the last contract may have pressured the union to talk tougher this year. "I think the teachers felt if we didn't stand our ground this time, we may never be able to do so the next time."

Longtime labor observers agree Cayetano asserted himself more powerfully in this year's contract negotiations than previous governors did, pressing ahead with his plan to gain some tangible new benefits for management for each raise granted to the public workers.

In one case, he was successful. The state cut a deal late last year with the United Public Workers union that provided for raises of about 11 percent. In exchange, the union agreed to reduce vacation and sick leave benefits for newly hired workers.

Cayetano said that UPW agreement is "very important" to the state, and worried aloud last month that if the other public worker unions don't make comparable concessions, the UPW will never enter into such an agreement again.

In the education arena, Cayetano pitched merit pay for university faculty and proposals for the teachers he said would increase "accountability." He wanted to phase out the pay system based on seniority, and instead grant raises to teachers for professional development such as obtaining national certification.

Cayetano said his "accountability" proposals were rejected because the HSTA is run by senior teachers who are wedded to the seniority system.

Teachers such as Rieben dismiss Cayetano's proposals as an effort to make teachers "jump through more hoops" to receive raises, instead of recognizing and rewarding teachers' for their experience and improving skills with each passing year.

Both sides dug in, and time ran out. Cayetano said last week that the timing of the strike put graduations and college semesters at risk, and pronounced: "We should never let any group, unions or whatever, hold education hostage for pay raises."

In fact, the Hawai'i Labor Relations Board, whose members were appointed by Cayetano, opined two days before the strike began that both the teachers' union and the Cayetano administration had been "stubbornly intransigent. Both sides have been wedded to their version of the moral and public relations high ground."

The board also used the word "hostage," but not the way Cayetano did: "Both sides act somewhat as though they have taken our schools hostage, and are prepared to begin sacrificing hostages unless they achieve their objectives."

Like most Hawai'i Democrats, Cayetano has relied on the public worker unions for political endorsements and campaign help. To some teachers, that makes the events leading up to the strike seem like a shocking betrayal.

James Takushi, who led the state negotiating teams during the administrations of Govs. John Burns and George Ariyoshi, said the public nature of the bargaining thus far makes it difficult for Cayetano and the union leaders to compromise.

"When you take public positions, it's very difficult to retract, and that's why we did our negotiations behind closed doors," Takushi said. "When a strike comes, it's when people have given up hope and people are hanging on to their pride."

Cayetano also complained before the strike that what he saw as loud public posturing by the unions was part of the problem.

"I think that among teachers, expectations have been driven very high by this very expensive P.R. campaign that HSTA has waged over television and in the print media," he said. "There's no question I think there's public sentiment on the side of the teachers. The question is, how much? How much do you give?"

Public pressure will escalate tomorrow as parents look for child-care arrangements for the coming week, Takushi predicted. The critical issue, of course, is who will get the blame.

The signs on the picket lines point the finger at Cayetano, but by the second day of the strike, Cayetano already was announcing that public opinion was shifting in his favor.

That claim was mocked by teachers on the picket lines.

As Gary Rodrigues, state director of the United Public Workers, put it: "It's easy to go on strike, I'll tell you that. Hard to come back."

Advertiser staff writer Scott Ishikawa contributed to this report.