Progress lacking in teachers' strikes
| • | UH professors weigh strike against key research |
| • | Advertiser special: The Teacher Contract Crisis |
By Walter Wright
Advertiser Staff Writer
No one budged in Hawai'i's public education strikes yesterday, leaving parents of 183,000 children scrambling for day care and 43,000 university and community college students idle as the work stoppages enter their third day.
The school teachers' union revealed yesterday it had held "preliminary" discussions with the state Friday night, and said it was ready to resume talks, but there was no apparent movement in either strike.
Plans to open a single class for just 20 seniors at Laupahoehoe on the Big Island fell apart when the teacher changed her mind.
"I feel the state and the union are using the children and my school as political pawns," Naomi Seely told the Hawaii Tribune Herald.
More than 12,000 teachers at more than 250 public schools walked off their jobs Wednesday evening, rejecting a $93 million pay raise package which would have given them a 14 percent increase over four years.
The Hawaii State Teachers Association union was asking for a 22 percent raise at a cost of $260 million, but informally offered a $161 million compromise.
More than 3,100 UH professors shut down Hawai'i public higher education on ten campuses the same day, rejecting an 11 percent offer they said actually totaled only 9 percent compared to the 12 percent raise and 1 percent in merit pay they want.
The Department of Education will continue to assess the ability of each school to open and will announce any openings by 4:30 p.m the preceding day, spokesman Greg Knudsen said.
The HSTA reported that 104 teachers crossed the picket line on Friday, fewer than the 126 who crossed the first day.
For UHPA, 90 percent of the faculty stayed out as 376 of the 3,188 members crossed the line to work.
