HSTA freezes member dues this school year

The Hawaii State Teachers Association’s Board of Directors has authorized freezing members’ dues amounts for fiscal year 2021–22 which begins Sept. 1. Therefore, the dues members pay during the 2021–22 fiscal year will be the same amount that was paid during the 2020–21 fiscal year.

The dues freeze also means HSTA absorbs a scheduled increase in dues for each HSTA member collected by the National Education Association, HSTA’s parent organization. Had our state board not taken this action, HSTA dues would have gone up 4% had the increase in NEA dues been included.

The rationale when HSTA’s board took up the matter said, “As HSTA scales back a number of in-person meetings with more economical virtual options and with no pay raises in the 2021–23 HSTA contract for the bargaining unit, it is inappropriate to raise dues for members at this time.”

HSTA Secretary-Treasurer Lisa Morrison said, “With the hardships members have endured recently and the fact that they are taking home smaller paychecks without the 21 hours of PD, we feel now is not the right time to ask our members to pay more.”

Earlier this month, the HSTA board also authorized an accelerated implementation of a nearly 40% reduction in dues beginning with the first paycheck of the new school year for instructors on salary steps 1, 2, and 3 of the 15-step salary scale. The cut in dues impacts roughly 400 of our lowest-paid educators.

Delegates to the 2021 HSTA State Convention passed an amendment to HSTA’s bylaws calling for this reduction. However, bylaw amendments don’t take effect until Sept. 1 of the year that they are passed and that would have been after the school year began. HSTA’s board voted to speed up the dues decrease so it will take effect in August.

“We want our instructors making significantly less than fully licensed teachers to experience and be able to afford the benefits of union membership while they complete their licensure requirements,” Morrison said.