UH professors weigh strike against key research

By Jennifer Hiller
Advertiser Education Writer

Botany professor David Duffy oversees more than $6 million a year in research projects.

Demonstrators line up on University Avenue in support of the strike at University of Hawai'i as cars head into parking lot off Dole Avenue. Cory Lum • The Honolulu Advertiser

H.C. "Skip" Bittenbender, an extension specialist in the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, changed his voice mail message to let Hawai'i farmers know he's walking the picket lines. He doesn't know when he will be back at work to advise them on crop cultivation. "A lot of the farmers didn't realize we were part of the university," Bittenbender said.

Duffy, Bittenbender and many other University of Hawai'i professors, who bring in $180 million in federal grants and training projects each year, went on strike this week uncertain how long it will last — or how it will affect their research and the ability of the university to secure federal dollars.

Nearly 90 percent of the Manoa faculty honored the picket lines Thursday and Friday in an effort to secure better wages and working conditions. Participation in the strike has been solid across the campus, but many researchers acknowledge that at some point, they may have to chose between the picket line or losing months or years of academic work.

The first two days of the strike, Bittenbender checked in with his technician by phone to talk about a $175,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to improve 'awa production in the state. "To endanger those grants is a lose-lose situation," he said. "It's terrible for the university and for the state."

Duffy's staff members who are not part of the University of Hawai'i Professional Assembly are keeping things operating for now, but eventually, he said, he will have to return to work or risk losing millions in federal financing. He oversees a myriad of projects, from replanting native species, studying malaria in native birds to rebuilding a fish pond wall with the help of Native Hawaiian masons.

"I'm personally in a difficult position. I won't let my 180 people be laid off," Duffy said. "I have an obligation to my people and their kids. Ethically I just won't stop these projects. I'm in a very conflicted mood."

Duffy's operations employ about 50 people each on the Big Island and Maui.

"These are people in rural areas where there aren't many jobs," he said. "This just sickens me. I am faced with an impossible question."

At the College of Natural Sciences, which brings in about $14 million a year in grants and awards, about 90 percent of faculty members are walking the picket lines, said Dean Chuck Hayes.

"There is a concern. Most all of the faculty are on strike, and that does include people that bring in enormous amounts of money in research grants," Hayes said. "There is a concern as the strike goes on that it could have an impact."

Many employees affected

Last year, professors at the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology received $35.7 million in grants and $7.31 million in nonresearch awards. SOEST faculty have four or five people standing behind them — graduate students and staff whose paychecks are covered by grants. The college has 189 scientists, but 650 employees to support, said Dean Barry Raleigh.

About 80 percent are on strike.

"I'm certainly anxious," Raleigh said. "This is not good for the university and it's not good for our relations with our federal agencies."

A decision by the state to delay issuing paychecks to striking faculty members for work done April 2-4 has Duffy worried. The Department of Accounting and General Services said it cannot process the paychecks for those days until April 30, instead of at mid-month, as would be usual, because it wasn't informed of who is and is not on strike in sufficient time.

Decisions like that could be considered an accounting irregularity, Duffy said, and endanger federal funding for the entire state. He said any one of the hundreds of federal investigators assigned to oversee grant money coming into the state could consider the state's decision as a violation of federal compliance regulations.

"Any one of them can raise a question that can put the university and the entire state on a list that cannot receive federal funds," Duffy said.

While the situation would be extreme, Duffy said it's possible.

Alex Malahoff, president of the faculty union and an oceanography professor, employs about 50 people as the head of the Hawai'i Undersea Research Laboratory and the Marine Bioproducts Engineering Center. "People seem to forget that we are an economy," he said. "The professors are actually employers. That's why this set of events is ludicrous."

Alan Teramura, senior vice president of research and dean of the graduate division, said a short strike should do little to interrupt most research projects.

"With a protracted strike, we have the potential to see some negative consequences. There's over $100 million in sponsored research and another $80 million-plus for training grants that's potentially on the line," Teramura said.

Teramura is doubtful that he will have to pull the plug on any federally sponsored research projects. "Because the research is so important to these people, even if they are on strike, they will be checking in to make sure things are running smoothly," he said.

At the Cancer Research Center, about half of the faculty are still at work, said director Carl Vogel.

Some have refused to sign in for work to receive a paycheck, but come to the labs anyway. "Some of our investigators, if they don't continue their work, months on end of work will be lost," Vogel said. "They are actually individuals who are on strike, but they're working."

Biologist still at work

Not all of the university's top grant winners are on strike.

Ruyzo Yanigimachi, the biologist who led the teams that cloned several generations of mice and later created glowing, green mice by blending the genetic information of two animals, is still at work. He and some of his colleagues are among the 180 faculty members the Hawai'i Labor Relations Board declared essential workers.

Yanigimachi said their work with live animals prevents them from going on strike. "I got permission from the union that I would be able to be here," he said.

Michael Hamnett, director of the Social Science Research Institute, has $1.5 million in grants and contracts and oversees about $11 million a year in contracts in his department. "If we go into next week I'm going to have a problem," he said.