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UPDATED 7/19/11 8:40 a.m.

The Hawaii State Teachers Association on Monday sought relief from pay cuts that Gov. Neil Abercrombie and the Hawaii State Board of Education unilaterally imposed on teachers beginning July 1.

The injunction request was the union’s second filing with the in 10 days. On July 8, HSTA filed a 37-page formal complaint against the state for forcing new employment conditions on its 12,500 members. The state’s actions, HSTA says, violated teachers’ collective bargaining rights.

This latest filing is five inches thick and follows up on the union’s earlier plea for temporary relief from the pay cuts, which include a temporary 1.5-percent salary schedule reduction, a 50-percent employee contribution to health premiums and directed leave without pay on certain non-instructional days.

The first leave-without-pay day (read: furlough day?) is scheduled for July 28, just two days after teachers return to campus to prepare for students, who are to begin school on Aug. 1.¹

HSTA President Wil Okabe told Civil Beat that the document seeks an injunction “basically to stop the pay deductions, also the medical deductions and implementation of the furlough days when we start next week, and we’re asking that they come back to the table.”