Mass rallies, union demands feed growing sense of urgency

By Jennifer Hiller and Curtis Lum
Advertiser Staff Writers

Negotiations between the state and union that represents nearly 3,100 University of Hawai'i professors broke off late last night with no settlement in sight.

Teachers walk from the federal building yesterday after staging a mass rally there. Gregory Yamamoto • The Honolulu Advertiser

At times the talks seemed promising, but when UHPA negotiators left the federal building at about 10:15 last night, they said they were frustrated at the "snail's pace" of the negotiations.

The two sides will not meet again until 5 p.m. tomorrow.

During a break in negotiations last night, UHPA president Alexander Malahoff was upbeat and said the two sides were making progress.

"The negotiations are good and solid," he said at 8:15. "The state team, including (chief negotiator) Davis Yogi, are very intent and we're having healthy conversations with them."

Two hours later, however, Malahoff was less optimistic as the UHPA negotiating team went home.

He said he didn't think the strike would be settled this weekend.

"(The state) is in a catatonic state. They won't move," Malahoff said. "Suddenly people turned to stone. Unless there is a major change in the attitude of Ben Cayetano and the university administration, forget about this university."

Malahoff said the frustrating thing is the state and UHPA are not far apart on their demands. But he said the state will not budge from its stand.

"There are no major show-stopping issues that I can see. But it's their inability to move," he said.

The stalled talks ended a day in which tensions reached a new peak in the dual public educator strikes yesterday, with mass rallies, a new round of mediation with striking professors and both public educator unions demanding round-the-clock negotiations over Easter weekend.

A growing sense of urgency pervaded a joint rally at the Capitol held by the Hawaii State Teachers Association and the University of Hawai'i Professional Assembly, where union leaders announced they had reserved side-by-side conference rooms for the three-day holiday weekend. They asked state negotiators to meet — and shuttle back and forth between the two if necessary — until contract agreements are reached on both sides.

"Every day that passes by is a day lost," said Karen Ginoza, HSTA president. "A day is lost because the state has refused to settle the contract."

Hundreds of teachers and college students joined the union leaders to demand a return to the bargaining table.

HSTA members presented five-foot-high stacks of 53,000 petition signatures asking for an end to the strike that has virtually shut public education throughout the state.

'Not our fault'

Yesterday, though, Gov. Ben Cayetano placed the blame for the strike on the unions.

"Not our fault," Cayetano said. "We didn't call for this strike. They can end the strike today by returning to work. They're the ones who decided to call the strike, and they're the ones who are leveraging the education of our children and students at the university.

"I find it interesting that now all of a sudden they want to have two rooms and have our guy go back and forth in marathon sessions. That's not the way we're going to do it."

Following in the footsteps of Sen. Daniel Inouye, U.S. Reps. Neil Abercrombie and Patsy Mink met with Cayetano yesterday. Mink said she did not know how long the strikes would continue, but said she was encouraged by the meeting.

"He (Cayetano) is not absolutely frozen in his position as has been described in the media and in the press," Mink said. "I think there's some room, flexibility to work things out. I come away from the meeting with him feeling there's still a lot more work to be done, but it hasn't come to a position of a stalemate, I don't think."

The mass rally that started at the Capitol travelled down Punchbowl to the Prince Kuhio Federal building, where the state and University of Hawai'i Professional Assembly were meeting for the first time since the strike started.

Striking professors and upset students surrounded the building to wave at rush-hour traffic and then poured into the fourth-floor hallway where a federal mediator met with negotiating teams from both sides.

About 150 UHPA faculty members, sunburned from a week on the picket line, held an impromptu sit-in in the hall to wait for Davis Yogi, the state's chief negotiator, to emerge.

When he did, faculty members clapped to support the start of negotiations and chanted, "Contract! Contract!"

Number crunching

Meanwhile, there were no talks yesterday between the state and the striking public school teachers union. Both sides say they are still working on numbers.

Teacher participation in the strike remained at 99 percent yesterday, with 139 teachers crossing the picket line.

The number of professors honoring university picket lines has changed little since the beginning of the week, ranging from about 80 percent to 90 percent on various campuses.

At Manoa, 27 percent of all scheduled classes were taught yesterday, 21 percent were taught at Hilo and 8.4 percent at the community colleges, according to the UH administration.

Today is a state holiday and no schools or colleges will be open.

Staff writers Alice Keesing and Ronna Bolante contributed to this report.