[ TEACHER STRIKE ]

FL MORRIS / STAR-BULLETIN
Teachers Karen Yamaki, Shannon Morey and Wilene Tyau,
left to right, entered a meeting of the Hawaii State Teachers
Association recently at Moanalua High School.

Vast gulf between
teachers’ call for
‘fairness’ and
state’s wage offer

Teachers say they simply can't
survive on the salaries
proposed by the state

>> HSTA Web site
>> State Web site

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By Crystal Kua
Star-Bulletin

A VETERAN of the 1973 teachers strike, Louise Chung has more college credits than she knows what to do with.

In his first year of teaching here, Michigan native Eric Floro is looking for a second job to make ends meet.

All middle-school teacher Gloria Gorter is asking for is a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

The three teachers are at different stages in the teaching profession. Each is at a different salary level.

But all three share a common desire.

"We want a contract that's fair for everyone," said Floro, who teaches 7th grade math, science, reading and other core subjects at Washington Middle School.

And fairness translates into money for them.

While the Hawaii State Teachers Association and the state agree that teachers should get a pay raise, the disagreement is over how much. That dispute could lead to a strike Thursday. The two sides were planning to restart informal negotiations today.

The current formal wage proposals are:

>> The teachers union is seeking a 22 percent increase. That includes a 10 percent raise for everyone over the life of a four-year deal, plus "step" increases of about 3 percent in each year of the contract.

>> The state is offering an average 12 percent raise. Entry-level teachers would receive the largest hike -- 20 percent -- while those at the other end of the wage scale would get 10 percent. The amount for teachers in between varies.

Teachers say they are looking for three things in a contract:

>> A fair increase for everyone

>> Retroactive raises, because they have been working under a contract that expired in 1999.

>> Step increases to remain competitive with mainland schools in attracting and keeping teachers during a national teachers shortage

The state and the union disagree over how much a 22 percent raise will cost taxpayers. The state says $295 million, the union $260 million.

The price tag is too high either way, the state has said. The total cost of the state's offer so far has been capped at $67 million by Gov. Ben Cayetano.

Davis Yogi, the state's chief negotiator, has said the state's proposal is fashioned in a way that meets recruitment and retention concerns.

Yogi has said that the state's offer also includes the same pay-raise percentage as the union's for senior teachers. But the state offer, Yogi has said, also links pay to the state's future accountability plans.

Here's how the competing salary proposals would affect teachers at three levels of experience:

Entry level

Floro did not expect to be teaching in Hawaii, but a series of circumstances after he arrived here in August from Michigan to get his master's degree landed him in the classroom at Washington Middle School.

As an entry-level teacher, he makes about $29,000 a year.

"It means I'd have to get a second job. Basically, I'm treading water right now in terms of expenses," Floro said. "It's hard to get ahead, it's hard to save -- especially at the lower end (of the pay scale), and that's why the yearly increments (the union) is proposing would really help. Otherwise, you're stuck at a certain level for a number of years before moving on."

Not only does he have to pay the bills, he said, he also buys supplies for the classroom.

"Anything from soap to paper towels to clay to pencils to paper," he said. " I know I don't have to spend that, but what happens? The learning doesn't take place or you can't put together lessons."

The intent of both wage proposals would see salaries for teachers like Floro jump to $35,000, but the state's offer would delay implementation of that hike for one school year.

Coming from the cold of Michigan, Hawaii is an inviting place to live, but that attraction only goes so far, he said. "Once the afterglow of the weather wears off, there's still the bottom line -- you still need to survive."

Asked if he would keep teaching in Hawaii, Floro hesitated for a moment before replying, "I would love to stay in teaching, I love working with kids but I need to survive and right now it's very, very difficult to do that."

Average salary

National salary surveys show the average teacher salary in Hawaii at about $41,000 without cost of living adjustments.

That's about what Gorter makes as an Aliamanu Middle School language arts and Spanish teacher. Gorter has been a teacher for 13 years and has a master's degree.

"So what I would be striking for is just respect," she said.

Gorter's salary would rise to $45,000 under the state proposal and $50,000 under the union proposal. Gorter's on-the-job experience and education make teachers like her a valuable commodity. But she said she's at a vulnerable point in her career because she could take it or leave it.

She said it's taken her 10 years to become vested in the retirement system and "you can look around and you say to yourself, 'Do I want to get dumped on for an additional 10 years to fight this fight every year, to always try to meet the cost of living, pay for my school to keep getting ahead?' "

Top scale

Chung doesn't mince words.

After 35 years on the job, the feisty Pearl Harbor Elementary kindergarten teacher can just walk away from her lifelong profession and retire. She chooses to stay on because, she said, she loves being in the classroom.

Chung and other longtime teachers say the state's proposal raises entry-level salaries at the expense of teachers like her.

"They make like seniority doesn't have value, as if all of us grew older but not wiser and didn't go deeper in our profession," she said. "I'm saying that (the governor's) idea that most of us teachers got our degree, joined a secured job and just sat there day by day baby-sitting kids, calling it education, has been very, very hard on us on the great bulk of teachers."

Chung said she continues to takes classes -- one vehicle teachers use to get pay raises -- but she's maxed out on years and courses.

"I'm still taking courses to improve myself and improve what I do with my kids, but (the credits) have no value in getting me anywhere in a pay scale," she said.

So she relies on across-the-board raises to lift her salary.

The highest a senior teacher makes is $58,000. That is expected to rise under both proposals to $64,000.

But teaching lies not only in college courses, Chung said.

"The expertise I have in my head to give to my children ... a lot that I didn't get in classes, I got that experience on the job and the longer I'm here, the more experience I have," she said. "I have not started to die on the vine, wither or mold, as they're implying that so many of us are doing."