3 teachers with prior non-HIDOE teaching experience win salary adjustments

HSTA asks HIDOE for data on hundreds of other teachers who may be entitled to pay settlements

News Release from HSTA, November 7, 2024

The Hawaiʻi Labor Relations Board (HLRB) last week ruled in favor of three teachers who brought a case related to the Fall 2022 repricing of Bargaining Unit 05 (BU 05) employees carried out by the Hawaiʻi State Department of Education (HIDOE). The HLRB handles cases under the Collective Bargaining in Public Employment Act, Hawaiʻi Revised Statutes (HRS), Chapter 89, or often simply referred to as “Chapter 89.”

HLRB rules that HIDOE violated the law

In the fall of 2022, after HIDOE announced its repricing plan, some BU 05 employees were frustrated to learn that their prior teaching experience outside of HIDOE would not be counted in any repricing adjustments. As a result, four teachers filed prohibited practice complaints against both HSTA and HIDOE with the HLRB.

While the first teacher’s complaint was unsuccessful, the other three teachers’ complaints were combined into one case.

The teachers’ complaints included allegations, among other things, that HIDOE committed prohibited practices by violating the terms of the BU 05 contract. They alleged that HIDOE failed to properly pay them for their years of service beginning with their Nov. 18, 2022 paychecks in violation of the state collective bargaining law. They also alleged that HSTA breached its duty of fair representation and committed prohibited practices by failing to request negotiation over the HIDOE repricing plan.

While the teachers filed their cases against both HIDOE and HSTA, at the conclusion of the hearing on the merits in January of 2024, the HLRB granted HSTA’s motion for a directed verdict in favor of HSTA, clearing HSTA of any wrongdoing regarding the HIDOE’s repricing plan.

In particular, the HLRB noted the following:

“It is undisputed that only BU 05 service was considered in determining salary adjustments under DOE’s repricing plan. Non-BU 05 service was not considered despite HSTA’s request that non-BU 05 service be included in determining salary adjustments under the repricing plan.”

Essentially, the labor board said that prior teaching experience outside of BU 05 was not considered, despite HSTA asking HIDOE to include those years when considering the salary adjustments. The HLRB also noted that because the repricing plan was developed and implemented pursuant to HRS § 89-9(f)(2), it only required consultation with HSTA and not more formal negotiations. Consultation only requires the employer to consider HSTA’s feedback or concerns, but does not require the employer to agree to any particular position on issues.

The final HLRB decision regarding any wrongdoing on the part of the HIDOE took many months and was only recently issued on Oct. 25. The HLRB found the HIDOE “willfully committed prohibited practices under HRS § 89-13(a)(7) by violating HRS § 89-9(f)(2) and derivative prohibited practices under HRS § 89-13(a)(1) by interfering with HRS §§ 89-3 rights.”

Specifically, the HLRB found that HIDOE willfully committed a prohibited practice when it effectively excluded teachers with prior non-HIDOE teaching experience from the class of teachers eligible for repricing or the “compression fix,” thus failing to comply with the provisions of HRS § 89-9(f)(2) in violation of HRS § 89-13(a)(7).

Why didn’t HSTA challenge HIDOE’s decision to exclude prior experience?

HSTA’s Chief Negotiator Andrea Eshelman testified before the HLRB that HSTA requested multiple times that the employer consider prior teaching experience for the repricing calculation, but the employer refused each time.

HSTA also considered all options to challenge HIDOE’s refusal to consider prior experience through a grievance with a demand to bargain with the department or file a prohibited practice complaint at the HLRB itself. However, any of those actions would have likely resulted in the employer simply withdrawing the repricing plan altogether, as the law under HRS § 89-9(f)(2) gives complete discretion to the employer to implement repricing and does not allow the union to force such action.

After considering all possible options, the only viable option to address years of salary compression for BU 05 employees was to concur with HIDOE’s plan, so as not to jeopardize millions of dollars for thousands of our members. The opportunity to increase more than 9,000 teachers’ salaries valued at more than $50 million outside of traditional collective bargaining would likely never have happened again.

In fact, given that fixing salary compression had been in discussion for years, and HSTA was never able to convince the employer to fix the problem at the bargaining table, it was a huge win to secure permanent funding and adjustment for HSTA members in the state budget with the help of legislators and Gov. David Ige. The teachers who successfully challenged the exclusion of prior experience at the HLRB would have only been able to make their challenge once the plan was implemented in the first place. The HLRB understood the nuances of the difficult position in which HSTA was placed and agreed with HSTA’s decisions on how to proceed by dismissing all claims of wrongdoing by HSTA.

What about other similarly situated teachers?

Now that the HLRB has found wrongdoing on the part of HIDOE, HSTA has officially requested the HIDOE plan to address hundreds of others who are similarly being affected by the ongoing violation of HRS § 89-9(f)(2). HSTA plans to pursue any avenue to assist similarly situated teachers who were employed at the time of the repricing adjustments (Fall 2022) and did not receive adjustments for their prior teaching experience.

HSTA President Osa Tui, Jr. said, “I appreciate these teachers taking the initiative to stand up to the department for what was right and for what HSTA had been advocating for from the beginning. While HSTA was put into an incredibly difficult position having to weigh the consequences of not proceeding with fixing salary compression for thousands of teachers, we are hopeful that this HLRB decision will open the doors to hundreds of others who find themselves in the same situation when their experience was not properly credited by the department.”

Now that HSTA has an avenue to pursue claims for others, we are seeking to get this issue resolved once and for all. When HSTA has updates on this effort, we will provide them to members.

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HEARING VIDEOS: Reid v HSTA / HIDOE - YouTube