HSTA should go back to bargaining table

The executive director of the Hawaii State Teachers Association (HSTA) repeatedly claims that the state must now accept a contract offer that HSTA held a ratification vote on, after it rejected the same offer more than six months earlier.

As an attorney who has practiced labor and employment law in Hawaii for more than 30 years representing employers in many nego- tiations, I have tried to understand HSTA’s position — but it makes no sense.

I have followed the HSTA negotiations because I am interested in what happens in our schools and how that benefits our children.

HSTA chief Wil Okabe acknowledges the teachers had rejected the same offer. As they teach you the first year in law school, "Offer + Acceptance = Contract." But "Offer + Rejection = No contract," and rejection makes that offer invalid. It really is that simple.

It is no different than if you try to sell your car for $1,000: someone offers you $800, and you say no, I want $1,000. That $800 offer is off the table; you cannot come back months later and "accept" it. I do not see any difference between that and what HSTA is doing here. HSTA knew before it held the vote that the offer was not on the table because the governor express-ly said that its rejection acted to extinguish the offer.

When the HSTA rejected the state’s offer in January 2012, the legislative session had just begun. HSTA then waited until after the session ended to take a vote on the offer it had rejected months previously. In the interim, the parties continued to negotiate. HSTA knew the January offer was dead because it resumed negotiations after January and made a subsequent formal proposal.

The state then made its own counterproposal, and negotiations continued. That’s what happens in negotiations: you make new proposals and counterproposals until an agreement can be reached.

I have been in negotiations that were finished in hours, while others took many months. But I have never been in a negotiation where one party made an offer that was rejected by the other side, who then tried months later to "accept" what it had rejected. That would be met by the same response the HSTA claims to be surprised to hear: "You rejected that offer months ago; it’s off the table."

Perhaps Okabe is hoping the public will not understand that there was no offer to vote on. He should know he has no grounds to stand on. If HSTA truly believed the state is legally wrong, then it would file a complaint with the Hawaii Labor Relations Board — which it has not been shy about doing in the past, or a lawsuit. Instead, Okabe wrote that the governor may be tired out by the protracted negotiations ("Obama has it right; Hawaii teachers accept his challenge," Star-Advertiser, Island Voices, July 18). If the governor is tired, it must be from waiting for HSTA to get back to the table and finish negotiations.

It is time for HSTA to stop talking about an offer it rejected and get back to the negotiating table. That is the place to settle this. If circumstances have changed since January, that’s what negotiations are for.

Our children went back to school this past week. Teachers teach our keiki right from wrong. The right thing to do here is be honest about the situation and bargain for a contract that both sides can accept.

Okabe has the opportunity to set a good example for our keiki by returning to the bargaining table and reaching an agreement that allows everyone to focus on the mission of educating our keiki.