By George F. Lee, Star-Bulletin
Royal Elementary School fourth-grader Inosia Pati Jr.
passes teacher picket lines on Punchbowl Street this morning.
"These are informational pickets to let people know what the teachers want and deserve," Hawaii State Teachers Association spokeswoman Danielle Lum said.
The picketing, planned at all public schools statewide, was scheduled to occur before and after school and should not disrupt classes, she said.
The HSTA was considering a contract offer that would raise teachers' pay about 14 percent over two years but also require 10 more instructional days a year by the end of the contract, according to sources familiar with the negotiations.
The state reportedly offered 4 percent pay raises each year for 1997-98 and 1998-99, but no increase retroactive to 1995-96 and 1996-97.
The state also wants to add 10 instructional days over the last two years of the contract. It would pay teachers for the extra work, adding roughly 6 percent to the cost of the proposal.
Lum yesterday confirmed the union had received a formal offer but refused to release details. She said the union had neither accepted nor rejected it.
Kathleen Racuya-Markrich, spokeswoman for Gov. Ben Cayetano, also refused to release details.
Schoolteachers have been working without a new contract since June 1995. The union has sought a 14.4 percent pay increase over two years without additional work days.
At 176 instructional days, Hawaii has the shortest school year in the nation, nine days below the national average, according to a Department of Education report last year.
HSTA's nearly 12,000 members will vote Feb. 6 whether to strike. If approved, a walkout affecting more than 188,000 students could begin 10 days after notice is given.
A small sample of teachers interviewed by the Star-Bulletin were not thrilled with the state's reported offer. "I don't think the governor is sending the right message. That's less than what the fact-finding panel said we deserve," said Campbell High School teacher Rod Martin, referring to a panel appointed by the Hawaii Labor Relations Board that recommended teachers get a 10 percent pay increase in one year.
"Some of our really great young people won't consider going into teaching because of the pay, or they go out of state to do it," said Martin, who earns $34,000 annually after 10 years of teaching. Paying his son's $29,000-a-year tuition at Boston University eats up virtually his entire salary, said Martin, whose wife also works, "and we've also got a daughter at UH and one headed for college."