HSTA DISPLAYS DISTURBING LACK OF INTEGRITY

To Agree to Drug Tests and Then Renege Is Just Plain Dishonorable

Public school teachers displayed a disturbing lack of integrity when
their union reneged on the random drug tests they agreed to in their
contract with the state.

The Hawaii State Teachers Association last year accepted "random drug
and alcohol testing procedures" as part of a two-year contract that
paid them 4 percent annual raises and a step increase.

The agreement, which required drug tests to start June 30, was signed
by HSTA president Roger Takabayashi and other top union leaders and
ratified by 61 percent of the teachers voting.

The 13,000 public school teachers have already started collecting
most of the pay raises.

Gov. Linda Lingle and the Board of Education have fought for months
over who would pay for drug testing, with the board seeking $500,000
for a six-person bureaucracy to test one-fourth of the teachers each
year while Lingle said only 1 percent of the teachers needed to be
tested annually at a cost of $35 per test.

While the politicians fought, the HSTA assured us they were ready to
implement the drug agreement whenever the governor and the board
worked out their differences.

"If they want us to fill a cup, we will," Takabayashi said in
January, but the HSTA started back-pedaling when it looked like
Lingle and the board were near a deal.

Last Thursday, HSTA executive director Mike McCartney notified the
state that the union won't honor the agreement on random drug testing
because HSTA now believes such testing violates the state and federal
constitutions.

"Today, both parties know much more about the legal issues
surrounding drug testing that were not known at the time of the
initial agreement," McCartney said.

Nonsense. There have been no constitutional rulings breaking new
ground on employee drug testing in the last year - nor any legal
precedent for HSTA claiming the right to unilaterally decide what is
constitutional and what is not.

This has moved beyond the issue of whether drug testing is right or
wrong to a question of the integrity of the teachers who stand at the
front of our children's classrooms.

If they thought drug testing was wrong, they should have had the
courage to reject that part of the contract in last year's
negotiations and dared Lingle to make it a strike issue.

To agree to random drug testing and then renege after the pay raises
were already in their pockets was plain dishonorable.

The honest thing to do if they've had a change of heart would be to
implement what they agreed to and seek legal remedy to have testing
ruled unconstitutional.

If the court agrees with them, an injunction would likely be imposed
before any drug tests were done - and if the court doesn't agree with
them, the teachers would have no grounds to refuse the tests they agreed to.

The union seems reluctant to go this route because random drug
testing is commonly used in other sensitive occupations and has stood up.

The Lingle administration filed a complaint with the Hawai'i Labor
Relations Board and should defend the integrity of collective
bargaining by pursuing means of voiding the contract and rescinding
the pay raises.

At the very least, the governor should freeze negotiations for a new
contract until the current contract is implemented.

In the year the teachers have whined about drug testing, the United
Public Workers has willingly worked with the state to set up drug
tests for its members to promote a drug-free workplace and set an
example for the community.

If drug tests are OK for the school custodians and cafeteria workers
UPW represents, what's so special about teachers?