Posted on: Friday, March 16, 2001

Strike would wipe out a creative opportunity

Gov. Ben Cayetano has expressed astonishment that some public-school teachers are demanding a tax increase if that's what it takes to win them a substantial pay raise.

If there is anything positive about this picture, Cayetano says, it suggests that his administration has done a fairly good job of selling the idea that there isn't room for a pay hike of the magnitude the teachers demand within the current budget.

The governor has gone on the offensive, arguing that a pay increase much bigger than what is now on the table would have to be cut from the flesh and bones of other programs, including welfare and support services for our schools.

That's true only if both sides look at this as a zero-sum game. There are ways in which pay raises for teachers can be seen as an investment rather than a drain on the budget.

For instance, the governor's negotiating team has been pushing hard for a compensation plan that pays for performance and upgraded skills as much as it does for sheer longevity. Stronger skills and better performance have a measurable impact on productivity, productivity that can offset higher salaries.

And we are talking here not just of the teachers, but of all state workers.

It is time for all parties in these disputes to begin talking seriously of a global reform of the relationship between management and the unionized public workers.

Rather than a conversation about wages, benefits and work rules, the talk around the bargaining table must be focused on productivity along with rewards and support for workers coupled with management flexibility.

The United Public Workers has taken the first tentative steps down this road. The teachers have a solid road-map for a much longer march in the form of the new accountability and performance standards outlined in great detail by School Superintendent Paul LeMahieu.

Hawai'i is poised to make a great leap forward in collective bargaining and labor-management relations if both sides will only look for solutions that go beyond mere numbers.

How much better that would be than a strike in our vital public-school system.