Hawaii Educators' Strike - Your Help Is Needed

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2001 15:55:44 -1000 (HST)
>From: Stephen E Philion <philion at hawaii.edu>
>Subject: [PEN-L:10253] Hawaii Educators' Strike - Your Help Is Needed
>To: pen-l at galaxy.csuchico.edu
>
>Folks on PEN, feel free to circulate this important message to other
>lists. It's now day 8 of the strike and negotiations have not made that
>much progress. I'm part of an effort to get students on the picket lines
>to show support for the faculty union here. It's a story that hasn't
>gotten much play, but lots of students are actively walking on the picket
>lines with their profs here for many hot hours.
>The entire state's public schools are shut down. Imagine all the public
>schools in NY State shutting down at once, you've got a sense of the
>intensity of this strike....
>
>Do send letters, emails, phone calls,...Steve
>
>
>Hawaii Teachers Need Your Help
>
>[Message from Andrea Feeser, a former CUNY student and now a Hawaii
>teacher, to her CUNY professor Stanley Aronowitz. Please re-post this
>message and call the Hawaii Governor's office to express your
>solidarity.]
>
>
>We desperately need your help. Since Thursday April 5, the University of
>Hawaii Professional Assembly (affiliated to the NEA), our Faculty Union,
>and the public school teachers organized by the Hawaii State Teachers
>Association have  been on strike against the State of Hawaii, and
>there's no end in sight.
>
>The faculty here have been without a contract for the last two years
>because of the intransigence of Governor Ben Cayetano, who has refused
>to bargain with the union in good faith and threatened to reduce faculty
>benefits and health coverage by 25%. During the last two and a half
>years we have received no pay increases, effectively cutting our pay
>already. Until the end of last week, his negotiator Davis Yogi refused
>to meet at all with  union representatives, and then offered to LOWER
>the pay of part-timers employed as Lecturers at the university to $900 a
>credit hour!
>
>It seems clear that Cayetano plans to break the Faculty union,
>demoralize the faculty and clear the ground for what Davis Yogi himself
>has called an "entrepreneurial university." I don't need to decode this
>for you.
>
>Cayetano is strangling the life out of this university, he is betraying
>the school-children of the state, especially those who can't afford to
>go to more expensive mainland schools, and he's dealing a fatal blow to
>the labor movement in Hawaii. He's also destroying the Democratic party
>here and paving the way for a Republican party takeover of the state.(I
>kid you not, when Republicans start shaking hands on picket lines,
>something very peculiar is afoot!)
>
>Cayetano's actions and policies have deliberately provoked the first
>Education General Strike in American history! All public education in
>Hawaii is at a standstill. Support here is strong. The strike was
>authorized by 99% of public school teachers and 91% of university and
>community college faculty. And the local community here has been behind
>the striking teachers so far, isolating Cayetano but failing to do more
>than force him into the appearance of negotiation.
>
>We must have national attention and support and we must have it NOW! Can
>you please forward this email to as many colleagues and friends as you
>can.
>
>Can you please organize expressions of support through your own
>institutions, faculty organizations, professional associations or
>unions. These can be sent to us at www.uhpa.org.
>
>Can you please organize official and personal expressions of protest
>directed at the Governor of the state, letting him know how damaging
>this strike will be to higher education in Hawaii, and to the prosperity
>of the Hawaiian economy.
>
>Amazing things have happened so far! For a start, we have proved that
>professors can organize pickets, and turn out en masse to support a
>strike like this. But we need all the help we can get, if we are to have
>any chance of winning this strike.
>
>Here is the Governor's address and phone number:
>
>Governor Benjamin Cayetano
>Governor's Residence
>Washington Place
>Honolulu, Hawaii 96813
>
>Tel # (808) 587-2598 (Residence)
>       (808) 586-0034 (Office)
>
>
>Thanks,
>Andrea Feeser <FeeserFactor at aol.com>