UH faculty contract OK'd
| • | Advertiser special: The Teacher Contract Crisis |
By Karen Blakeman
Advertiser Staff Writer
Although only half voted, University of Hawai'i faculty members ratified a two-year contract negotiated after a strike that shut down public higher education in Hawai'i for two weeks.
Approval of the contract was announced yesterday. Eighty-six percent of those who voted approved the contract, said J.N. Musto, chief negotiator for the University of Hawai'i professional assembly.
The strike began on April 5 and continued until a tentative contract settlement was reached April 17, with details hammered out in the early hours of April 18.
Union members took 10 days to examine and vote on the negotiated contract.
Bill Puette, who teaches labor studies at the University of Hawai'i-West O'ahu, said he thought faculty turnout may have been affected by a lack of enthusiasm for the contract.
"It's not an exciting contract," he said. "It's not a merry Christmas package. It's just a step in the process."
Musto said the new contract is a step forward, bringing the faculty closer to its goals of offering competitive salaries overall, better teaching equivalency considerations for community college faculty and increased wages for lecturers.
"We've stopped the bleeding and attended to some of the wounded," he said.
The union is now looking ahead to negotiations for the next contract, Musto said. The newly ratified contract expires June 30, 2003. Negotiations toward the next contract could begin as early as April 2002.
The new contract includes a settlement package that raises salaries by 12 percent overall. It gives professors a flat rate increase of $2,325 for the first year (a 4 percent increase for those making a salary of $58,125, slightly more than the average salary of about $57,000) and a 6 percent raise in the second year.
Special salary adjustments for individual professors were funded at 1 percent of the total salary base in each of the two years.
Lecturer fee schedules were increased by 3 percent each year.
The contract also addressed the workload at community colleges, allowing for some activities to be considered the equivalent of classroom time.
The new contract increased the overall number of teaching equivalency hours from 2,000 to 3,000, paid for with $1 million a year in addition to the 12-percent package, Musto said.
