• HGEA viewpoint on governor’s actions
HGEA viewpoint on governor’s actions
By Richard H. K. Onishi
I am a data processing system analyst for the County of Hawai‘i’s Data Systems Department, a steward in Bargaining Unit 13, and a member of the Unit 13 Negotiation Committee representing state and county employees on the Big Island. I am also one of the Unit 13 directors on the HGEA Board of Directors and the chairperson of the HGEA Political Action Committee.
In my opinion, Governor Linda Lingle is a liar.
So what else is new? After all, she built her career on spinning any subject at any time to twist and bend the truth to suit her aspirations.
What is new is that Governor Lingle lied to defame me, one of the negotiators who represented HGEA members during the recent negotiations and arbitration. In her April 8 open letter to state employees, she said we rejected her 4 percent raise offer. We never rejected it, because she never offered it to us. We got zero-zero, month after month. Only when we entered arbitration did she up the ante to zero the first year and one percent the second year, but with no step movements, no credit for the two years of work toward future step movements, and no change to the vacation and sick leave benefits for our newly hired fellow members.
Why tell this lie? To make HGEA members doubt that their negotiation teams were working for them. To destroy their support for the arbitration process. To turn us against the Democrats who put their political careers on the line to override her veto of the bill that restored binding arbitration and to fund our arbitrated award. To ultimately divide and destroy our union.
Governor Lingle is trying to deceive us and the public from placing the blame where it should be, on her! She didn’t put any reasonable offer on the table and now she is lying to make it look like my fellow negotiators and I rejected her “generous” offer.
We initiated negotiations with then-Governor Cayetano on September 26, 2001. The lame duck governor was in no hurry to settle, so he passed the ball to Lingle. Her new chief negotiator, Ted Hong, asked for time to get things in order, which we allowed, but things did not improve. For 11 months, they stalled every time we requested to meet. Hong assigned other Employer representatives to meet with us. He himself rarely attended. When we did meet, we sat hour after hour at the table, stymied by their refusal to make any salary offer or to address cost issues.
Clearly, if negotiations is give and take, the employers wanted us to give everything so they could take everything.
Governor Lingle probably calculated she had nothing to lose by stringing us out. What could we do, strike? Maybe she was counting on it. Or maybe she was counting on us giving in to avoid striking. Either way, she was counting on coming out ahead.
But the playing field was leveled in 2003 when the Legislature restored binding arbitration for HGEA. Governor Lingle vetoed the bill, even though everyone knew that a strike by HGEA members would have a major effect on the slowly recovering economy. But that didn’t stop her, she was gambling on us not striking. But the Democrat-led Legislature was not about to gamble away the recovering economy. They remembered the crippling effects our last strike had on public services and the economy, and overrode her veto.
We entered arbitration on January 12, 2004 after 27 months of trying to negotiate. The employers claimed they could afford only 1 percent. The arbitrators looked at the proof and gave us 5 percent. Employers tried to kill step movements. Arbitrators looked at the proof and continued the merit steps. Employers wanted a permanent two-tier leave system. Arbitrators looked at the proof and got rid of it.
Now Governor Lingle is lying to our members and the public to continue her spin work to divide us and weaken our union. She says she values the work that we do. Don’t believe it, she’ll say anything to get what she wants. It’s been a long calculated pattern of distortion and dishonesty, and I’m tired of it. I’m fighting back. I’m going to help reelect every legislator and councilmember who stands up to her and votes to pass their budgets with the funding for the arbitration award.
Governor Lingle has a list of targeted legislators she is going to try to get out of office. Well, I have my list of politicians that I’m going to work to get out of office and she’s at the top of my list.
Richard H. K. Onishi is a resident of Hilo, Hawai‘i
