MIKE Yuen's Star-Bulletin story on the possible governorship candidacy of Maui's mayor, Linda Lingle, contained a couple of exciting paragraphs about Lingle not having backing from any of the public-worker unions in her successful re-election bid in 1994. Public unions
have too much powerShe managed to win, she said, because while union leaders were against her, union members weren't. "I've kept Maui fiscally sound. Workers' jobs are secure. They do not have to worry about furloughs or payroll lags," she boasted.
Could this be the opening for a long-needed debate about government union leaders meddling in management? I hope so.
Gov. Ben Cayetano said in his 1994 campaign that he would try to get school principals de-unionized. Since then, he has had too many other priorities to move on it.
Department heads trying to effect change have had union leaders go over their heads to friendly legislators to stall them. Some have been told to their faces by union and civil service workers: "We'll be here when you are gone."
Statewide seniority rules handicap education management. So do strung-out grievance procedures and rigid definitions of the school year, school workday and evaluation procedures.
It was a travesty when a former leader of the Hawaii State Teachers Association boasted (probably somewhat beyond the truth) that not a single teacher had been fired on his 12-year watch.
Private-industry managers have much more management discretion than government managers. One reason may be that their unionized workers and leaders know good management is essential to saving their companies and their jobs.
Reforming government from within seems so impossible that there is a widespread move to farm out government operations to private management. This often has proved more do-able than achieving change inside the power structure. Nationwide and internationally some dramatic things are happening with positive results.
We need to look at these, debate them and apply their lessons to Hawaii. Mayor Lingle's participation in the 1998 governor race might spur this.
There are a lot of reasons why she won't win:
We have never had a neighbor island governor.
But we haven't had many people either who have won without strong union endorsement. Lingle has tackled other no-win situations and won.
She is a straight arrow. She has developed a record of competent management. She shudders at excessive bureaucracy - having to write everything down, as with ethics codes, when most of us know what's right and can use openness in government to detect when something is wrong.
SHE seems to have passed the open-government test on Maui, even in discussions over hiring her husband as her attorney and later in separating from him.
Until now we mostly have focused on the possibility that Governor Cayetano could get his most serious re-election challenge from Honolulu Mayor Jeremy Harris. Lingle, who can't run for re-election, seemed more likely to seek a seat in Congress.
Now she tells us she doesn't have the patience to be on the legislative side. Furthermore, it gets cold back in Washington (also much hotter than here). She has given Cayetano a second mayor to worry about.
Win or lose for Lingle, we all will win if she dares to put a spotlight on the unhealthy grip on government management now held by public-union leaders.