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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Friday, April 25, 2003

UH faculty union agrees to partial deal

By Mike Gordon and Bev Creamer
Advertiser Staff Writers

State negotiators and the University of Hawai'i Professional Assembly agreed to a partial contract settlement yesterday that will cover increases in health insurance premiums, Gov. Linda Lingle announced.

The agreement does not include salary increases, which still must be negotiated. J.N. Musto, the union's executive director, said the agreement still allows university faculty and staff to strike, but he said that possibility is remote.

UHPA is one of 13 public worker unions representing some 57,000 state and county employees whose contracts expire June 30. Two unions representing firefighters and state nurses have reached arbitrated settlements. The other unions are in negotiations or arbitration.

Lingle and Musto yesterday said the state's financial difficulties led to this first-ever kind of settlement.

"I'm personally gratified with UHPA to negotiate in these challenging times," Lingle said. "This allows us to move on. It allows the university's students to know the fall semester will take place."

Musto said the university needed stability and evaluation more than a strike. It was a much softer tone than the militant one taken by the union two years ago when it took faculty and staff out of classrooms for a 13-day strike.

The administration yesterday sent a $5 million budget request to the Legislature to cover anticipated increases in health premium benefits for those covered by the UHPA contract, Lingle said.

If the health benefits issue had not been settled, UHPA members would have seen a dramatic increase in costs of about $1,000 per year — to $4,000 — for families to maintain full coverage.

Other key points in the settlement include:

• Reduction by one course in the course load for Community College faculty to spend time in professional development, counseling with students, research.

• Extension of family leave from four weeks to four months, with coverage extended to domestic partners and fathers-in-law and mothers-in-law.

• Stricter guidelines in distance learning that establishes that UH will provide training, equipment and technical support to faculty and limit the number of students in courses to the same as those enrolled in traditional classes.

• Granting multi-year contracts to faculty not seeking tenure.

UH President Evan Dobelle praised the contract, and both Gov. Lingle and former Gov. Ben Cayetano and UHPA executive director Musto for their willingness to allow "interest-based bargaining, ostensibly where we sit on the same side and we all agree there's a problem and we figure it out."

Reach Mike Gordon at mgordon@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8012.