Negotiator for HSTA
recounts frustration

Her testimony comes during a
hearing on disputed bonuses

---

By Crystal Kua
ckua@starbulletin.com

In the hours leading to a contract settlement that ended a statewide teachers strike in April, Joan Husted became so frustrated with negotiations that she was willing to have a federal judge take control of the schools rather than accept the state's last offer.

"I think I said to (the state's team) that I was very upset that we were being nickeled and dimed to death," said Husted, the executive director and chief negotiator of the Hawaii State Teachers Association

Husted recounted for the three-member Hawaii Labor Relations Board her recollection of the events that led to the settlement, events that included union officials being threatened by a federal judge and their trying to dodge media.

Husted's testimony came on the opening day of a labor board hearing that will try to resolve a dispute between the state and the union over a 3 percent pay differential to teachers with advanced degrees.

The bonuses are supposed to be paid to teachers with master's and professional degrees.

Both sides filed prohibited- practice complaints with the labor board, alleging that the other side bargained in bad faith over the bonuses.

The attorney for the state argued that no agreement exists on bonuses because there was no meeting of the minds between the state and the HSTA during contract negotiations last spring.

"Two ships passing in the night, each misunderstood the other," private attorney John Fairbanks said.

But HSTA attorney Vernon Yu argued that both sides reached an agreement that was subsequently reduced to writing, and the labor board should compel the state to execute that written agreement.

"The only relevant question is whether or not there was an agreement," Yu said. "Whether the agreement is correct, whether there was a meeting of the minds doesn't matter."

Husted testified that the day the settlement was reached, the bonus was not discussed because she believed it already was resolved before the strike began.

"The 3 percent being paid for one year or being capped at $6 million was not discussed," Husted said.

On April 23, U.S. District Judge David Ezra called both sides into his chambers. Ezra was overseeing compliance with a federal consent decree aimed at improving special education services in Hawaii.

"What the court basically told us was what people had been speculating and that was he would order all the special education teachers back to work off the strike and any teacher who had a special ed child," Husted said. "I do not know what he told Davis."

A short time later, they received a call from the state team "asking us to meet at our usual place, our secret bargaining place where the media could never find us."

Ruth Dalisay, a teacher on the negotiating team, dropped Ginoza and Husted off on the loading dock so they could enter the former Hemmeter building through the state office tower.

They met up with chief negotiator Davis Yogi, budget chief Neal Miyahira and Department of Education personnel director Sandy McFarlane.

Husted said the meeting wasn't fruitful.

"So at one point, Davis said to me, 'Well, you're not going to like it if the federal court takes over,'" she recalled. "I said, 'Davis, it's going to be far harder on you than it will be on me because the federal court will have your checkbook.'"

But the union's negotiations committee and executive eventually approved the deal that ended the strike.