Isn’t this interesting.

A Hawaii Newspaper Guild press release on Monday reported that Stephens Media, owner of the Hawaii Tribune-Herald newspaper in Hilo, has announced plans to pull out of its Guild contract. This follows years of negotiations during which the company has been found to have used unfair and illegal labor practices, fired union activists, and negotiated in bad faith.

The press release was sent to more than 40 reporters and editors. A Google search this morning found a Pacific Business News story, but Google didn’t turn up any reporting by the major daily newspapers or any broadcast stations.

Considering that this is a significant event in labor news and journalism news, the lack of coverage is surprising disturbing.

Then there’s the latest go-around in negotiations between the state and HSTA, which broke off after a short meeting yesterday.

Gov. Lingle’s chief policy advisor quickly issued a statement spinning the issues, which was quoted by the Advertiser in its “breaking news” section.

“HSTA has falsely claimed that the Administration is removing teacher planning days. This is not true. The joint DOE/BOE Administration bargaining team has made it clear that teachers can retain all of their planning days, if they so desire. We are simply asking them to come back into the classroom for 27 days and allow students to learn,” Smith said in a statement.

The Advertiser reported Smith also complained that HSTA “wanted to renegotiate other portions of their contract, including provisions that require teachers to provide campus and playground supervision.”

Then Smith adds some critical information in a back-handed way.

“It is particularly unfortunate and very discouraging that in the most recent round of discussions, the HSTA has side-stepped the primary issue by proposing to reopen portions of the original contract unrelated to the furlough issue and is seeking changes that would compromise the safety of the children and limit their after-school programs. The HSTA is now saying they do not want teachers to participate in campus and playground supervision responsibilities during lunch hours. And they no longer want teachers to voluntarily participate in school-related activities after the regular school day – such as glee club, debate team, robotics, or prom night,” she wrote.

Wait a minute. While asking teachers to retain most planning days at their own expense, Linge/Smith react angrily to the suggestion that teachers already do a whole lot of things they aren’t being paid for, what Smith refers to as their “voluntary” participation in activities after the regular school day.

So what’s really being said here? Lingle/Smith blame the union for not agreeing to Lingle’s plan.

But the state’s offer generously allows teachers to work for free on most of those planning days. And according to a follow-up story in today’s Advertiser, the state’s plan would only bring teachers back into the classroom on those furlough Friday.

The governor’s plan only calls back “essential” teachers, meaning only regular classroom teachers, the union said.

The plan would not cover the salaries of health aides, educational assistants, office staff, security guards or cafeteria workers.

Teachers would presumably be expected to cover all of those additional duties necessary to make it through a “normal” school day.

And teachers would be expected to continue to “voluntarily” staff all those after-school activities as well.

What a deal for the teachers! No wonder negotiations are going nowhere.

For more on the teachers’ viewpoint, check out the HSTA on Facebook.