HONOLULU (KHON2) — Emotions ran high at Kapiolani Medical Center when hundreds of nurses were locked out from going to work on Saturday, Sept. 14.

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The Hawaii Nurses Association said it is a hard-handed tactic to get the union to accept a new three-year contract deal and the one-day strike on Friday, Sept. 13 was over unfair labor practices.

The President of HNA is a registered nurse at Kapiolani and said the lockout on Saturday was indefinite and unnecessary.

Travel nurse fired amid Oahu nurse strike, lockout

“The strike is the choice of the workers and this is the choice of the hospital, to lock us out,” said HNA president Rose Agas-Yuu. “What is the hospital going to do from this point, besides cut our insurance? Keep the nurses from getting paid?”

Scores of nurses turned out to clock into work on Saturday even after they received a warning via email and letter that they would be barred from entry — the lockout was confirmed in person just before 7 a.m.

“The nurses will not be allowed to work until further notice, I’m asking you respectfully to leave the property,” hospital leadership said in part to the nurses.

Officials with Kapiolani said the imposed lockout is to convince HNA to accept a three-year deal and add union nurses will maintain medical/dental benefits through the end of September 2024.

The proposed contract calls for three-day work weeks for nurses with 12-hour shifts, but Kapiolani nurses told KHON2 that their days already often can be as long as 14 or even 16 hours.

“When you cross over into October, they will have the ability to have the same benefits through COBRA,” said Gidget Ruscetta, Kapiolani Medical Center for Women & Children’s chief operating officer. “We have been corresponding, sending information to our nurses so that they can be prepared.”

Kapiolani Medical Center nurses to strike despite threat of lockout

Nurses from other hospitals said it is an issue that they deal with as well and showed up to give support for the nurses at Kapiolani on Saturday.

“When I go on break, I have to give my two sick patients to another ICU nurse who already has two very sick patients,” Queen’s Cardiac Intensive Care Unit nurse Paul Silva said. “At no time is it safe for an ICU nurse to have four patients.”

The two sides — Kapiolani and HNA — do not quite see eye-to-eye on who can end the lockout.

“They’re keeping us away from the patients. That’s their choice. It’s not ours, it’s their choice.” Agas-Yuu said.

“The union has the power to stop this. It’s in their hands. And we have reached out to the union as early as this morning, and we have expressed that we are willing and available to meet,” Ruscetta said.

If there is any point of agreement, it is that local nurses are wanted back with patients.

“We want our nurses back at the bedside. We want them to be able to provide the care that we know they want to provide,” Ruscetta said.

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“We don’t want to be out here on a strike line,” Silva said. “We want to be in the hospital taking care of our patients. That’s it.”

A temporary nursing workforce has been secured at Kapiolani while the lockout is ongoing, a future date for negotiations hasn’t been confirmed.

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HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – Every year, more people leave Hawaii than move here, and young adults make up nearly 25% of those departures.

The Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii’s Young Professionals (YP) Program is hosting a summit to discuss solutions to the brain drain.

Organizers Jessica Yuhara and Alena Kangas Auyoung joined HNN’s Sunrise to talk about efforts to retain top young talent in Hawaii and its Cost of Living Summit on October 25 from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Alohilani Resort in Waikiki.

Among the factors prompting the outmigration of young adults are the high cost of living and lack of civic engagement in Hawaii. According to UHERO and DBEDT, young adults ages 25 to 34 represent 13.8% of Hawaii’s population, yet account for 24.3% of departures.

More than 150 young professionals, community leaders and policymakers will discuss solutions at the summit, which aims to empower young professionals with tools and knowledge so they can turn the tide.

“This is a summit of and for our generation. We have to be the solution. Our families invested in their children not to bring those gifts to bear elsewhere. The summit will empower young professionals with the tools and knowledge needed to actively engage in their communities and make their voices heard on the issues that matter most,” organizers said.

A UHERO report shows only 1 in 5 local households can afford a mortgage for an $875,000 median priced home, while Child Care Aware of America says child care in Hawaii costs 18 percent of the median income for a married couple.

Tickets for the Cost of Living Summit, presented by Tradewind Group. are $50 for members and $65 for the general public. For more information, visit tinyurl.com/YPCostofLiving.

The YP Program aims to create a movement and change by building a stronger coalition to solve some of the state’s biggest challenges.

To join, visit cochawaii.org. Membership rates start at $50.

Here are some event highlights:

1. “Surviving in Today’s Hawaii” Pre-Summit, Presented by American Savings Bank

• Focus on financial literacy with sessions on growing and investing money, starting a side hustle, buying a home, preparing for college, taxes and more.

2. Cost of Living Summit presented by Tradewind Group

• Cost of Housing Panel: Address housing affordability and discussion of potential solutions
• Workforce Retention & Cost of Childcare Panel: Explore the impact of childcare costs on workforce retention
• Interactive Breakouts: In-depth sessions and solutions-driven discussions on workforce retention, childcare costs and affordable housing.
• Lunch & Learn: Enjoy lunch with notable change makers including Housing Committee Chairs Senator Stanley Chang, Representative Luke Evslin and others.

Cost of Living Summit registration includes attendance to all sessions including a Pau Hana Networking event.

Copyright 2024 Hawaii News Now. All rights reserved.

The two finalists to become the next president of the 10-campus University of Hawaii system are scheduled to meet with community members across the state later this month and early October, when public input will play a role in determining who the UH Board of Regents selects.

The board has narrowed the search to succeed current President David Lassner to:

• Wendy F. Hensel, executive vice chancellor and university provost for The City University of New York.

• Julian Vasquez Heilig, provost and vice president of academic affairs for Western Michigan University.

UH said Hensel “oversees every aspect of the student and faculty experience across the 25 campus system.”

Previously, Hensel was the dean of the College of Law and provost and senior vice president of academic affairs at Georgia State University and graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School. She earned a bachelor’s degree “with highest honors” from Michigan State University, where she was a Harry S. Truman Scholar ​​and an intern at the U.S. Supreme Court, UH said.

Vasquez Heilig previously was the dean of the college of education at the University of Kentucky. Vasquez Heilig has doctorate and master’s degrees from Stanford University and degrees from the University of Michigan Ann Arbor.

They were picked from 93 applicants and are scheduled to appear at community forums and before groups of campus leaders, faculty, staff and student leaders, including the Puko’a Council, a group of UH Native Hawaiian leaders, according to UH.

“There was a tremendous amount of interest shown in the president’s position, and now we have two excellent candidates,” Board of Regents Chair Gabe Lee said in a statement. “We are asking all members of the UH ohana and other stakeholders, along with the general public, to participate in the public events and provide feedback on our finalists. That input will be critical as the regents deliberate and select the next UH President.”

Neal Milner — former chair of the political science department at UH Manoa and UH’s ombudsman, who also ran a program on conflict resolution, said the candidates will have to walk a line between listening and talking about their experience, particularly to often-skeptical faculty who will want to hear about their teaching backgrounds.

They also will face the challenge of coming from out of state and not from Hawaii or from within the UH system.

“The first trap is, are you snotty?” Milner said. “Are you holding up your nose and telling people how it was done someplace else?”

He called Lassner a good and generally successful leader during Lassner’s 14 years as UH president. Lassner is scheduled to retire at the end of the year.

But UH has had some clunkers among its 14 presidents before Lassner, especially Evan Dobelle, Milner said.

Milner called Dobelle, in particular, “a con man … who suckered the board of regents.”

The regents conducted “a secret search” before picking Dobelle and didn’t conduct basic research into Dobelle’s troubled background of controversy.

In 2004, UH regents voted unanimously to fire him following accusations of lavish spending, dishonesty and wasting university resources.

He infamously drove around the Manoa campus in his Porsche rather than a state car and bought a home for more than a $1 million while living rent-free in the president’s mansion, College Hill.

The regents’ decision to fire Dobelle “for cause” while he was on the mainland enabled UH to avoid paying around $2 million for the last four years of his contract, plus benefits.

Dobelle went on to become president at Westfield State University where he also was fired after criticism that he charged personal expenses on school credit cards and went on lavish foreign trips.

Milner said it’s good that the two finalists to become UH’s next president come from public university systems and not private, elite schools.

“They didn’t just get off the turnip truck, so they get it,” he said.

Milner called UH’s flagship Manoa campus, in particular, “an urban commuter school with an international flair that doesn’t get celebrated enough” that “does good research and has raised a tremendous amount of money.”

The candidates will have to “learn how to learn and thrive and accept what this place is like but there is a culture of resistance that exists at the university,” Milner said. “The university is resistant to change.”

At the same time, he said, “all presidents have to be strong advocates both for the university and the importance of knowledge.”

Simultaneously, Milner said, the next president has to be responsible for fundraising and “understand when you have to be tough with faculty” while also earning “the respect of faculty members.”