meeting notes?

[Mari Matsuda]

Hi all - I was the only confused one who thought we were meeting at 1 pm today - pretty quiet around Hawaiian Studies this afternoon!  Does anyone have notes they care to post for those of us who missed the meeting?  I still want to support whatever we are doing.   Aloha and happy holidays to all, Save UH!  Mari Matsuda

[Ken Kipnis]

Several of us met yesterday at about 10 a.m. 

After some discussion, there was a tentative consensus that an achievable objective -- one that UH faculty could achieve -- is to work at changing the conversation from horror stories about how bad things are in education, social services, etc, to an offensive that advocates measures that are not being considered for saving and generating state funds.   Here are three that were discussed.  

1:  An amnesty for many Hawaii citizens who are presently incarcerated in Mainland and Hawaii prisons.  

2.  A temporary increase in the excise tax that would be earmarked for education.  

3.  A return to income tax rates prevalent in Hawaii before the catastrophic "Reagan Revolution", 

4. Raising usage fees on ceded lands.    

We need to generate proposals that have not been considered for reasons that may no longer be persuasive given furloughs, crumbling infrastructure, and social service atrocities that seem to get more outrageous by the day.  Proposals like these, were they to emerge from academicians, might move the leg to levels of thought that have not been seen in Hawaii politics for some time.  And given the  Gov's proposal to snatch the TAT funds flowing to the counties, there may well be ample support.  

We need to start saying what nobody else is saying: that we can't "cut" our way out of the present crisis.   

We talked about TeachIn II, an indoor event with invited speakers capable of addressing these issues.  

Ken Kipnis

On Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 1:43 PM, Mari Matsuda <mat...@law.georgetown.edu> wrote:

Hi all - I was the only confused one who thought we were meeting at 1 pm today - pretty quiet around Hawaiian Studies this afternoon!  Does anyone have notes they care to post for those of us who missed the meeting?  I still want to support whatever we are doing.   Aloha and happy holidays to all, Save UH!  Mari Matsuda

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[Nandita R Sharma]

UHPA Response to President MRC Greenwood’s December 21st Letter

by UHPA Staff — last modified 2009-12-22 18:30

UHPA issued the following press release after being informed by UHPA members and the press of the content of an email message sent from President Greenwood. UHPA will immediately respond in state or federal courts should President Greenwood unilaterally implement a salary reduction. UHPA will keep you informed of any developments. (Click on the title for more information.)

The UH administration’s announcement to unilaterally impose a salary reduction for UH faculty in the new year is disturbing but not surprising.  It is characteristic of the way the faculty have been treated since April 2008, when UHPA first initiated negotiations for a renewed contract.  The UH administration has consistently attempted to circumvent the collective bargaining process, and the UH administration’s latest edict is yet another example of this.  It is important to point out that the UH administration did not directly notify UHPA about their decision to implement the pay cut; we found out when media called about the press release issued by the UH administration.

Our current contract is designed to remain in effect until a new one takes its place.  It was confirmed in July 2009 by former Associate Supreme Court Justice Mario Ramil that the language in our current contract establishes an “evergreen clause.”   It appears the UH administration would like to legally challenge this evergreen clause, and UHPA is fully prepared to go to court to defend this.

For almost two years now, the faculty has offered many different solutions to help the UH address the state’s budget shortfall while being careful not to compromise the quality of education. The UH administration ignored or rejected our ideas.  Restricting funds for the UH – the only revenue-generating state institution -- and reducing costs to meet arbitrarily set budget targets only hurts students, our state and our economy even further.  If there are insufficient funds to support the university, despite the faculty generating twice as much in tuition and external grant funding than it receives in state general revenues, then the consequences will be fewer courses, fewer programs, fewer campuses, fewer faculty, and higher costs to the consumers of public higher education.

The faculty has always raised its voice of caution. Attempting to cut UH faculty salaries to meet the budget shortfall will cut our nose to spite our face.  It is short-sighted and self-destructive. We will have more to lose than to gain, and it will be virtually impossible to regain what we have lost in terms of our reputation as a Tier 1 research institution and our ability to attract high-caliber faculty.

Our four-year contract proposal would have provided a viable alternative to the UH administration’s “last, best, final” offer, which was actually its first and only formal proposal to the faculty. Although UH President M.R.C. Greenwood claims faculty salaries must be competitive, we have not seen any attempt on her part to keep this promise.  Instead, faculty salaries and contributions for health insurance continue to decline and she has not served as an advocate for the UH system. Ultimately, we need a president with vision, who can set a strong direction for the UH and who is willing to support the faculty in word and deed.

UH President M.R.C. Greenwood praises other state employee unions for agreeing to their contracts, but it’s important to note, unlike the UH faculty, they have not been asked to mentor more students and teach more classes, nor have they brought in significant revenue from external funding sources.  President Greenwood also fails to acknowledge the state is now grappling with the consequences of those other contract settlements.  There must now be a significant investment of time and resources to unravel the chaos and to find appropriate ways to make those settlements work.

See the story published in today's Star Bulletin:
 http://www.starbulletin.com/news/20091222_Last_best_union_offer_at_UH_calls_for_67_percent_cut.html


Nandita Sharma,
Associate Professor
Departments of Ethnic Studies and Sociology
University of Hawai'i at Manoa
George 301, 2560 Campus Rd.
Honolulu, HI, USA 96822
Tel: (808) 956-5354
Fax: (808) 956-9494
E-mail: nsh...@hawaii.edu

[Hannah Miyamoto]

Dear faculty,

   Speaking as a UH graduate student, and also as an attorney familiar with the law of sovereign immunity, I think that President Greenwood's unilateral faculty pay cut idea is both unlawful and dishonorable.  However, if UHPA does not get a preliminary injunction, rather than strike, I suggest that UHPA sue for breach of contract and petition to attach valuable UH property up to a reasonable value of the unpaid salary.  I would start with the Medical School, relatively new buildings on commercially-valuable land, and also cash-generating property, such as Stan Sheriff Center, and parking lots.

   Once attached, this property would then be leased back to UH, although the parking lots and Stan Sherrif Center could also be placed under private management, and the cash generated could then go directly to faculty, as well as be made available to UH faculty through low-interest loans.  If UH refused to pay rent on attached facilities, they could be sold at a court-supervised auction ("sold on the courthouse steps").  This is a third realistic alternative for faculty from having to strike, or acquiesce to the pay cut.

   Eventually, merely by delaying new contract negotiations, faculty could own the entire UH system, and then a complete reorganization of UH system management could be forced through legislation or foreclosure.

 

   I am happy to discuss this with anyone at any convenient time.

 

Hannah Miyamoto

Graduate Studies, Sociology

[Sankaran Krishna]

Dear colleagues: I have not spoken up much thus far, but here are my two cents for what they are worth. Please don't jump to conclusions until you've read through my message. I have closely read President Greenwood's latest press message the the UHPA leadership's response.

 

1: We are losing the public relations battle - in fact, its a rout. What the public hears is quite simply that the UH admin has proposed two years of 5% cuts along with a promise that salaries will be restored to levels prevalent at summer 2009 levels for the two years thereafter. They have left open the possibility that increases can be made if economic conditions permit. Our union leadership comes out sounding petty and selfish in its response as we are asking for raises in subsequent years irrespective of conditions in an unforseeable future.

 

2: I am not sure the evergreen clause is going to save us. Yes, legally binding contracts are the bulwark of any political order, but I find it hard to believe that courts will uphold the rights of a union against management (which is how the UH admin is spinning this out) in a thoroughly capitalist society such as our's. GM reneged on retirement pensions, health insurance and a host of other promises it made to its workers over the decades when the shit hit the fan. The idea that a court of law will uphold a certain magnitude of wages for labor  irrespective of changes in economic conditions is ludicrous.  

 

3: More importantly, I think it would be wise for us to consider what such a legal 'victory' would mean for us in a state where everyone - public and private sector - is reeling under the impact of this recession. We will pretty much be the only set of public sector workers whose wages have not been cut. It will be a clear case of winning a battle to lose the war. If people in this state regard the UHM faculty as a haole elite that is totally out-of-sync with local values and traditions, this victory will pretty much hard-wire that mindset for decades to come.

 

4: An important point of our counter-argument is that UH faculty leverage every dollar spent on it to about 2-3 times that in grants, research money etc. This is a fine tactical argument but let us be aware of its limitations. It partakes of a narrow cost-benefit calculus that can be more effectively used to divide us and destroy some of us. You cannot say we deserve not to have wages slashed because we generate money. Most of us don't, most departments don't, and money generation for the state's economy or the university's coffers is not the reason why many of us went into academics. Such money generation is not the primary purpose of a university or its faculty. There is no way to argue for the continued sustenance of departments in the humanities, languages, most social sciences and many natural sciences on grounds of multiplier-effects and leveraging. We will always have to make a larger case for a university whose existence and importance transcends market evaluations. I admit that a deep budget crisis is not the most opportune time to make such a larger case.

 

5: I understand from various colleagues that the real sticking point between the UH admin and UHPA is the issue of retrenchment and who gets to decide who goes. Well, let us all know what IS the sticking point - and publicize that to the public of this state. Tell everyone that its not a matter of UHPA not wanting pay cuts but a matter of principle regarding faculty autonomy and self governance. If we as a faculty want the predominant say in how retrenchment proceeds, that is both in conformity with AAUP guidelines and a sensible (??!) way to retrench or downsize (or ---- choose your euphemism for firing people). But the main point is this: right now everyone thinks the reason UHPA and the UH admin cannot see eye-to-eye is that the faculty are resisting the idea of pay cuts and want guaranteed pay increases instead in the medium-term future. There is no way that is going to sound reasonable, fair, or anything but incredibly selfish at this point in time. If there are larger issues that are preventing a deal from being cut, UHPA is doing a lousy job of getting the message out regarding those larger issues.

 

6: Is there a Plan B if the courts do not uphold the evergreen clause? I've made it clear that I don't think much of Plan A (namely, wait till the courts uphold that clause and maintain our salaries at the current level) - but I hope someone somewhere in the union leadership has cased out the scenario of what hapens when that clause bites the dust in court.

 

Cheers, Krishna.

 

 

 

 

Sankaran Krishna
Professor, Department of Political Science
640 Saunders Hall

University of Hawai`i at Manoa

Honolulu HI 96822 USA
Telephone: 808-956-8841

[Joan D Peters]

All--

All,

 

I didn't have Sankaran's courage, but I do need to say that I agree with her.  I do not feel good about UHPA's rejection of what sounds to me to be a reasonable offer.  I am on the Board of Directors at the Waianae Mental Health Center and I've seen what the cuts in social services have done to everyone around here.  It disturbs me--and even my thoroughly union-loving heart-- that we, as a faculty, are refusing collectively to take part.  I don't want to see academic programs gutted arbitrarily on the pretense of budget necessities, but I bet we could find other, even more effective ways, to combat that.  The point that we won't be able to attract new faculty is an important one, but it's become sort of catch-phrase after all these years, at least it sounds that way under these circumstances.  Without knowing what UHPA's strategies might be, from this position, I think we should accept President Greenwood's offer.  I hate the tactics she's used up to this point, but here she seems fair.  Cheers, Joan

[Jonathan Kamakawiwo'ole Osorio]

 Aloha

 

The faculty is not refusing to take part. Our faculty has actually been the only body that has really engaged in a battle with the government for respecting contracts, and supporting education and the social services that the state provides. There is a budget crisis yes. But it did not prevent the legislature from increasing their salaries last year, and it hasn't motivated the legislature or the governor's office to look at changing the economic focus of this state from its ruinous dependence on military spending and tourism. They have leaped to the politically easiest solution they can find: cut education and social services and encourage the public to think of both as extras that government funds when it can afford it.

 

I am not a member of the haole and neither are most of you. I am a Kanaka Maoli who believes that these islands do not belong to business--big or small. They get to work here and make their profits, but they are not the sector whose values and ideologies should be guiding government policy. Are taxes a burden to them? Not as big a burden as an increase in crime and poverty will be if we screw around with education and social services.

 

If President Greenwood can impose a 6.6% cut in our salaries, then we may just have to work for less than we deserve. But that doesn't mean we should accept this out of fear that we are being made to look bad. This president and this state has not earned my support, while I have earned every dime I have made working for this university and for this community. Iʻll be damned if I will agree. She can take my money but not with my permission.

 

Respectfully

 

 

Jonathan K Osorio
Professor Kamakakuokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies
University of Hawai`i Manoa
2645 Dole St. Honolulu, HI 96816
ph  808  973-0985

[Daphne Desser]

 Aloha friends,

 

I stand behind what Jonathan says here. I believe we should fight any proposed cuts to education or social services because we must speak out against the disastrous effects these would have and are already having on the economic and social well-being of Hawaii and its current citizens. The moral and humane thing for a society to do is to protect its children, its youth, and its most vulnerable--especially in times of need. We should be investing in social services and education right now, using this crisis as an opportunity to focus our efforts and reveal our true priorities.

 

So far, what the governor and legislature have come up with has been shameful. Ask Hawaii's public school children to not come to school every Friday, so that the government can save the cost of educating them on those days? And, by extension,  ask their (not-so-wealthy) parents to pick up the tab for educating Hawaii's children on those days? This is wrong, absolutely wrong, and we must continue to articulate why and how this is the case.

 

I am a haole who loves Hawaii and tries to understand its culture and past and who cares deeply about its future. I have dedicated my time, talents, and energies to these wonderful islands and to the people who come to this university to learn something from us. I am not ashamed or scared to ask for what is rightfully mine--a decent salary, so that I continue to raise my family here and do the work I have gladly dedicated my life to.

 

Full professors who bought their homes many years ago, who are at the top of pay-scale, who are past the years of raising children or who have never had them need to be careful about making statements about what sort of cuts can and cannot be easily absorbed by UH faculty. For assistant faculty members at the bottom of the pay scale (and who are the future of our university) who have yet to buy homes (if they will ever be able to do so), build up retirement funds, pay back college loans, who need to write during the summer rather than teach (so they can make tenure or eventually be promoted to full professor)  etc-- for those faculty members the proposed cuts may not be so easily absorbed. I'll speak for myself and my family: the proposed cuts are worth  fighting against 1) philosophically: because we need to have faith and pride in the work that we do for Hawaii and its citizens, and we need to continue to articulate, again and again, the value and purpose of public (higher) education in and for a democracy 2) pragmatically: because a 6.6% cut to our budget will not at all be easy for our household to handle.

 

I leave you all with this thought: if we will not stand up for ourselves, for public education, for the incredible gift (and necessity) that a public research university (to say nothing of the community colleges and the four-year institutions in our system) is for Hawaii, then who will? Trust and believe in the work that you do every day, for Hawaii and its people, and fight, fight, fight against those who would seek to devalue that work or ask us to devalue ourselves.

 

Give in now? Over my dead body.

 

Daphne

 

Daphne Payne Desser, PhD
Director of First-Year Writing
Associate Professor of English
University of Hawaii at Manoa
1733 Donaghho Rd. Kuy 402
Honolulu, HI 96822
808  956-9405

http://english100ideas.wordpress.com

[Hannah Miyamoto]

Happy Holiday, everyone:

 

   May I just remind people that *I* have not suggested "giving in," but a method of securing promises that the pay cuts will be made good in the future.  Taking title to commercially-useful pieces of UH will force UH to lease them back, and eventually buy them back, thus making faculty whole.

   On the other hand, I strongly advise creating a realistic alternative plan that can be presented to the Court.  The Court will not send Greenwood to jail for contempt of court, and that would hardly force UH to pay faculty full salaries.  Furthermore, UH wll claim that it is unable to pay the full salary; therefore, some satisfactory scheme must be presented to uphold the contract.

   One is deferred compensation, secured by commercially-valuable parts of UH, as I have suggested.  Another is radically cutting admnistration salaries and expenses; some combination of major pay cuts or terminations, without severance.  Here, the Regent's declaration of financial emergency will be very useful. 

  

   One thing clear is that to Greenwood, "Promises are Made to Be Broken."  Therefore, faculty would be fools to take any more promises, unless they are securced by title to property of equivalent value.

 

Hannah Miyamoto

Graduate Studies, Sociology

[Nandita R Sharma]

Dear Krishna and fellow UHPA members,

I feel like I need to correct something that Professor Krishna Sankaran stated: that the main sticking point in our current negotiations is over who gets control over the retrenchment process - the UH administration or the faculty.

This is not true.

The main issues that UHPA is concerned about are the ones that labour unions are always charged with bargaining for on behalf of their members: our salaries, our working conditions, our job security (which includes procedures to protect UHPA members in the case of any retrenchment), and our benefits (health, retirement, etc.).

As we all well know, on each of these major points, the UH administration is asking for significant cuts: a salary cut; an increase in workload and a significant decrease in the employer's contribution to our health plan. Along with that, we all know that the UH has not followed the AAUP guidelines of faculty involvement in shaping the process of any possible future retrenchment (i.e. job security).

And, as those of us who have been reading the communications from UHPA also know, UHPA has offered numerous, creative solutions to the budgetary shortfalls facing UH and facing the state.

It is the other side of the bargaining table - the UH Administration and the Governor - who are not responding with anything but demands for cuts, cuts and more cuts (plus student tuition increases, greater class sizes, longer graduation times, etc.). In fact, their "last, best, final offer" is their first and only offer - and this after almost 2 years of negotiating!

It is true that everyone is concerned about the issue of retrenchment.

Currently, there are several important protections within our existing contract around the issue of retrenchment. There is, in fact, a particularly cumbersome process regarding retrenchment that UHPA was able to successfully negotiate as part of our current and still-binding contract. It is this process that is stopping retrenchment right now - not some non-binding "promises" from the administration.

The administration's rumour that it will not initiate retrenchment procedures for two years (one-half of which has already past) is not because they are committed to saving programs, departments, colleges, etc. but is a direct result of their having to follow the procedures around retrenchment that UHPA secured in our collective agreement.

Moreover, we need to keep in mind that retrenchment procedures are not the only way that the UH administration can eliminate UHPA members' jobs. Many contract faculty (and members of UHPA) have already suffered as a result of these cuts. As for tenure (and tenure-track) faculty positions, these too can be eliminated with the elimination of programs and departments. The current language about such actions in our contract is what protects tenured faculty from simply being laid off outright in the case of potential cuts - not the "promises" from the administration.

Thus, who controls the any future retrenchment process is far from the only issue - and is certainly not the "sticking point" - in the current negotiations between UHPA, the UH Administration and the Governor (remember, we have a ridiculous three-sided bargaining table here in Hawaii).

On Krishna's point that the UH faculty have an image-problem (the well-worn refrain that: "they are paid too much and work too little"). This is true and it is just as true that this problem is nothing new and certainly not unique to Hawaii. To tie this "image problem" directly to the faculty's refusal to succumb to the cuts demanded by the UH or the Governor) is therefore disingenuous.

More importantly, if we think that by the faculty bowing, cap in hand, to the demands of the UH administration, that this image problem will go away, then we are seriously kidding ourselves!

Remember, it is not only UH faculty who have an "image problem" (created in large part by the corporate-owned media), all workers who have any rights to collectively bargain on their own behalf have a similar problem ("they work too little and get paid too much"). Apparently, the only workers without an image problem are those who have the lowest wages and the least (if any) protections from the arbitrary demands of employers!

Saying we should forgo our legal protection (the evergreen clause) and succumb to the Administratin's demands feeds directly into -and thoroughly acceps - the neo-liberal agenda that the cause of the latest crisis in global captialism is that workers are paid too much and have too many rights and protections!

The refrain that "we should all share the pain" certainly rings hollow when it is workers who are facing the brunt of the crisis - and paying for it with our tax dollars. Where are the tax increases for the wealthy or for large corporations in the state of Hawaii and federally? Public sector workers are asked to take a cut in their income but millionaires and billionaires in the state of Hawaii have not been asked to do so. Why not? Why are we not demanding that there be at least as much money in the federal stimulus program as there is for bankers?

The neo-liberal mind-set (and the government policies that entrench it) is something we absolutely must fight against if we have any hope in protecting the right of people to receive a public, *quality*,  affordable education in the state of Hawai'i.

In fact what many UHPA members have heard from HGEA and UPW members who also work at UH is that they wish their unions had had the foresight to succesfully negotiate an "evergreen" clause into their contracts. HGEA was forced to take a cut not  because they thought they would be better loved by people if they did but because they did not have an evergreen clause as we do.

If it comes down to a court battle with UH, let us see what the courts say about our evergreen clause (they have already ruled in our favour once). But I'll be damned if I agree to us simply handing a victory to neo-liberalism, to an intransigent, costly and heavily bloated UH Administration and a Governor who doesn't know the meaning of "negotiate" by going along with their demands for cuts!

This is the time for solidarity and in that spirit, let's stay strong and stay united!

Cheers, Nandita

Nandita Sharma,
Associate Professor
Departments of Ethnic Studies and Sociology
University of Hawai'i at Manoa
George 301, 2560 Campus Rd.
Honolulu, HI, USA 96822
Tel: (808) 956-5354
Fax: (808) 956-9494
E-mail: nsh...@hawaii.edu



----- Original Message -----

From: Sankaran Krishna <kri...@hawaii.edu>
Date: Wednesday, December 23, 2009 6:16 pm
Subject: Re:  [DHU] Attachment instead of strking; Was: UHPA Response to President MRC Greenwood’s December 21st Letter
To: Hannah Miyamoto <hann...@hawaii.edu>
Cc: DHU-...@googlegroups.com, William Wood <dww...@HAWAII.RR.COM>