Teachers have lost respect in drama over labor talks

Hawaii public school teachers proved again to be unreliable partners in the drive for better schools by rejecting a fair contract that could have helped save the state’s $75 million federal Race to the Top grant.

It’s the second time in this contract cycle that negotiators for the Hawaii State Teachers Association shook hands on an agreement with the state only to have it go unratified.

A deal last year was rejected by the union’s board and never sent to members for a vote, forcing the state to impose its "last, best and final" offer that set off a prolonged legal battle.

The latest agreement was approved by HSTA’s board but rejected by members who didn’t like its move to performance-based pay mandated by the Race to the Top grant, which the union had signed off on when the application was made.

Gov. Neil Abercrombie said in his State of the State that he’ll move ahead on teacher evaluations with or without their support, but saving the federal grant will be difficult with the state already facing a stern warning from the Obama administration about the slow implementation of its promises.

The endless labor drama with teachers is tiresome.

In the Cayetano administration they disagreed after a contract was signed about what had been agreed to.

With the Lingle administration, teachers agreed to drug testing to gain an 11 percent pay raise, then reneged on the tests after the raise was in hand.

They engineered the Furlough Friday crisis by insisting every single furlough day be on an instructional day, maximizing the negative impact on their students.

Bad faith must have consequences.

If teachers’ flip-flopping is in any way responsible for costing the state $75 million, it should be reflected in their future compensation.

No future contract should pay them a penny more unless it includes a meaningful move to fair evaluations of their work and performance-based pay. Teachers should do well when their students do well.

The teachers don’t own the public schools and can’t be allowed to stand in the way of reforms that just about everybody but them agrees are needed to help Hawaii schools improve their last-in-the-nation performance.

Abercrombie rightly pledged in his State of the State to pursue every administrative, legislative and judicial remedy with or without the cooperation of teachers.

One of the things lawmakers could do now would be to follow some other states by writing into law the Race to the Top requirements — including teacher evaluations — so compliance would be legally mandated in future contracts.

Teachers talk a lot about getting respect, and they deserve it for the work they do. However, their consistent bad faith in labor negotiations has earned them anything but.

Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com or blog.volcanicash.net.