UH faculty question new 6-year contract

By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Education Writer

After initial relief that a salary settlement was reached and a strike averted, faculty members in the University of Hawai'i system are starting to run the numbers and wonder if the six-year proposed contract is as good as it sounded at first.

"I went to a conference of faculty (yesterday), and many of them are happy and relieved," she said. "But people are pointing out that it's not really as much as it looks over the long haul."

While she said she would vote for it, many are undecided.

On Thursday, Gov. Linda Lingle and bargaining teams from the state, the UH administration and the University of Hawai'i Professional Assembly announced a proposed agreement to increase salaries by 31 percent, compounded over six years. The raises, by year, are 1 percent, 3 percent, 2 percent, 5 percent, 9 percent and 11 percent. The first year's raise is retroactive to July 1, 2003.

Through compounding, the effective pay increase is 34.8 percent — an increase of about one-third over six years. The current average salary in the UH system for professors and instructors is $61,200, from a low of $35,000 to a high of $200,000.

In the final three years, the university would cover part of the raises — 1 percent, 3 percent and 3 percent — partly by increasing tuition.

The union's collective bargaining committee will review the settlement today before taking it to the UHPA board for approval later in the day. That would set up ratification meetings on the 10 UH campuses.

E-mail chatter was heating up yesterday about the settlement, ranging from support to disappointment.

Dennis Vanairsdale, a Kapi'olani Community College accounting professor, began running numbers on a spreadsheet. Using a base salary of $50,000, he compared annual pay raises of 4 percent over six years with the proposed UH agreement.

Under the UH settlement, a person would earn $67,401 a year after six years — more than the $63,260 earned under raises of 4 percent a year.

But if the salaries were added up over six years, the person with the 4 percent raises would earn about $344,000, or about $5,500 more than under the UH agreement. The 4 percent annual raises would mean higher salaries in the first five years than the person with the back-loaded UH agreement.

"I'm disappointed," said Vanairsdale, who said he would prefer 4 percent a year. "I've seen a lot of e-mail, and I haven't seen anyone who thinks it's a good contract. It's back-loaded, and that changes the value. It also puts a lot of the burden on the university (to pay for salaries in the last three years). It doesn't seem to add a lot of support for the university that's been lacking for so many years."

Concerns also have been raised over whether the state can be trusted to honor the contract.

E-mailers are reminding one another that in 2001 former Gov. Ben Cayetano threatened to veto a bill to provide money for arbitrated pay raises for the Hawai'i Government Employees Association. A compromise was reached to avoid a veto, but the union gave up some benefits.

"Your first response is, 'Thank God, we don't have to go on strike,' " said history professor Janice Nuckols, also at Windward Community College. "It's such a relief.

"My only concern is whether we'll see the last two years of it. Who knows what the economy will be like in year five and six. And in the first four years, it's less than 3 percent a year. That's less than all the unions are getting through arbitration."

Joel Fischer, a UH-Manoa professor of social work, is one of those adamantly against ratification, noting that the contract doesn't give a promised additional pay boost for full professors; counts on the economy continuing to boom; increases pay for faculty "on the backs of students"; and makes a false claim that it will bump the faculty up to the 50th percentile by assuming stagnation in peer institutions. UH faculty salaries are at the 30th percentile, meaning salaries are higher at 70 percent of peer institutions.

"Our economy is in a boom right now and has never been better," Fischer said. "To delay and give us a balloon payment at the end, when we can't say what the economy is going to be like, is an enormous mistake."

All of these concerns may be moot if the UHPA board decides today not to take the agreement to the membership for ratification. UHPA executive director J.N. Musto said the board must agree for the proposal to move forward.

The Board of Regents also must vote to ratify the agreement.

"It's the recommendation of the negotiating team that this agreement go forward and be ratified by the bargaining unit members," said Musto, who headed the union's negotiating team.

If the contract is ratified, Lingle is banking on an expanding economy to provide the money for the proposed contract, which will cost the state $123.9 million over the six years and the university $38.9 million in the final three years.

Musto credits the UHPA bargaining team and UH President Evan Dobelle for proposals to consider a contract longer than the usual two years. A six-year term is unprecedented in Hawai'i labor history, but would give stability and continuity to the university, according to the governor.

Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8013.