Gov Posts FAQ On Hawaii Teachers Contract
Gov. Neil Abercrombie posted on Monday his side of the story about what led to the current battle over Hawaii teachers’ collective bargaining rights.
The Hawaii State Teachers Association on Friday filed a prohibited practice complaint against Abercrombie’s collective bargaining team for short-circuiting labor negotiations, and the state has 10 days to file its formal response. Meanwhile, Abercrombie has published a chronological summary of the negotiations and an FAQ entitled “.”
It’s the first time the state has offered any information about the teachers contract since Abercrombie’s June 24 announcement that the Department of Education would impose its “last, best and final offer” on Hawaii’s 12,500 teachers beginning July 1 — without union approval.
The summary contains some old news — the state’s $1.3 billion budget deficit, for example, and Abercrombie’s call for everyone in Hawaii to make shared sacrifices. It also restates Abercrombie’s earlier claim that he believed both sides had reached an agreement back in June. (HSTA President Wil Okabe maintains that the governor “may not have been fully informed.”)
But it also has some new twists. For example, the governor says that HSTA rejected the state’s offer of federal mediation earlier this year. (The Hawaii Labor Relations Board directed the bargaining teams to seek a mediator on Feb. 22 after both parties declared an impasse.)
The Abercrombie administration also claims that HSTA did not present a counter-offer to the state’s “last, best and final” offer — which might be why his people thought they had reached an agreement.
Later, the governor’s team learned that HSTA’s board rejected the supposed agreement. Abercrombie’s summary states that by rejecting the state’s final offer, the board relinquished teachers’ right to vote on it.
“The opportunity for teachers to vote was lost when the HSTA board rejected the terms agreed to by the state and HSTA’s designated negotiators,” Abercrombie’s summary states.
Read the full FAQ here:
Finally, Abercrombie addressed the big question about whether a labor-friendly, Democratic governor (HSTA endorsed Abercrombie in his run for governor, after all) — or any governor, for that matter — has the right to unilaterally impose employment conditions on unionized teachers.
“Implementation of the ‘last, best and final offer’ is part of the collective bargaining process, and a decision that was necessary to avoid the alternative of disruptions to student learning,” Abercrombie says. “Faced with no agreement and no counter offer, everyone needed to prepare for the upcoming school year. Implementation of the ‘last, best, and final’ offer was the only recourse available to begin the school year on time.”
