Pubdate: Sat, 12 May 2007 Source: Maui News, The (HI) Copyright: 2007 The Maui News Contact: http://www.mauinews.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2259 Author: Tom Hansen UNION DID STATE TEACHERS NO FAVOR IN RECENT NEGOTIATIONS There are lessons to be learned from the recent Hawaii State Teachers Association negotiations and ratification of its latest contract. When the teachers pick people to be on the contract negotiation team, they should make sure that they pick teachers who understand what collective bargaining means. It's obvious that the team that negotiated the latest contract was naive beyond belief in their efforts at negotiation. When voting on the ratification of a contract, do not allow absentee balloting to take place after the voting has concluded. Making comments that the vote was too close to call before all voting has concluded invalidates the whole procedure. Do not allow the state, in violation of your constitutional rights, to increasingly intrude into your private lives. If educated people acquiesce to the loss of constitutional rights, who then will oppose that abuse? Don't allow the state to put a guilt trip on you because a half a dozen or so teachers have been caught abusing drugs. There are 13,500 teachers. Given the times we live in, it's remarkable so few teachers have gone bad. Marching teachers down to the health room to pee in a cup is not being done to ensure student safety, it is being done to humiliate teachers. Humiliation is a state-sponsored psychological technique to control its employees. Random testing of all teachers to protect students is like dropping a 1,000-pound bomb to get rid of a mosquito. Tom Hansen Lahaina - --- MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman