Let teachers vote on proposal

At some point, the time for talking comes to an end, and in the case of the Hawaii State Teachers Association labor dispute with the state, that moment arrived long ago.

The union and Gov. Neil Abercrombie have locked horns since the governor’s first few months in office, when he was trying to achieve 5 percent in labor savings as part of a plan to close a budgetary gap. In July he imposed the "last, best and final offer" terms under which teachers have worked ever since.

That move spurred the HSTA to file a complaint before the Hawaii Labor Relations Board, the union charging that the state violated teachers’ rights.

Now, aware that the festering dispute is a factor putting a federal education-reform grant at risk, Abercrombie on Monday announced an offer to the union in return for "immediately" ending the impasse.

HSTA leaders believe the offer should be the basis for further talks, but plainly that process has played out fruitlessly for long enough. It’s time for the union to put that offer up to a vote by members, allowing enough time for the rank and file to become fully versed in the details.

In the background of all the drama is the fate of a $75 million grant issued to the state by the U.S. Department of Education as part of its Race to the Top education reform initiative. Hawaii’s proposal has been flagged for being too slow to implement certain reform steps. In a further blow to federal confidence, teachers in January voted down a contract that included a performance-based evaluation, tenure and pay system, a key element among Hawaii’s Race to the Top improvements.

With a U.S. DOE team due to visit next week, everyone ought to agree that this stalemate needs to be brought to a swift end.

Failure to ratify the last contract and its evaluation provisions should not by itself doom progress. Many teachers stood ready to endorse the concept of the evaluations, but wanted more clarity on how the new system would be developed.

A new survey released this week showed that 54 percent of teachers who voted against the contract said their vote expressed a desire for more information on the deal, not disagreement with its basic direction.

Those who opposed the continued 5 percent wage reductions represented about 20 percent of the "no" vote, and only 11 percent rejected the pact because of provisions that would make student academic growth a factor in evaluations.

If what teachers want is more information, then they should get everything they need to make a fully informed decision.

There doesn’tappear to be much promise in further back-and-forth bargaining. The state’s offer, issued on Friday, was made in answer to HSTA’s February proposal. Sources have told the Star-Advertiser that the union’s proposal would have raised the state’s costs by an estimated $330 million. Despite improving revenue forecasts, locking the state into a six-year contract at that rate would, as the governor said, be "fiscally irresponsible."

"We shouldn’t have to apologize for trying to improve the situation for teachers," countered Wil Okabe, the union’s executive director. Indeed, there’s no reason to apologize: Improvement of teacher pay and work conditions is the union’s job.

But at this point, after so much rancorous and unproductive debate, the right thing to do is to call for the question. The union should present the state’s proposal in full and let the teachers decide.

Ideally, pulling free of this miserable entanglement could lay the groundwork for better bargaining relations going forward. An end to the stalemate should come as a relief to both sides, who really need to be focused on creating a strong, motivated and fairly compensated workforce for the long term.