HONOLULU -- Members of the University of Hawaii faculty picketed at Kapiolani Community College for a rally, where the UH Board of Regents met Friday.

The rally is to demonstrate their dissatisfaction over the lack of progress in their contract negotiations. Talks between the state and the faculty union broke off two weeks ago with no new meetings scheduled.

Picketers made pleas to regents as they passed picket lines to attend Friday's meeting.

The union has the legal right to strike. Union leaders are expected to take a strike vote next month. Once a strike is authorized, the union must give a 10-day notice to the university before employes walk off the job.

The state is under growing pressure to settle the contracts with a number of public sector unions, including University of Hawaii faculty members, who demonstrated at a Board of Regents meeting Friday.

Wielding strike signs from the previous walkout, about 200 university faculty members turned out to protest progress of their contract talks.

The union is demanding pay raises of 6 percent this year and 8 percent next year as well as a 4 percent hike in the base salary for full professors. The union said the state is offering no pay hikes this year and only 2 percent the second year.

"The zero and two is totally offensive," Kapiolani Community College Professor Sally Pestana said.

State Chief Negotiator Stan Hong refuted what the union said. Hong wouldn't elaborate, saying only that the two sides have exchanged proposals. No new talks are scheduled. Hong is grappling with how the state will pay for the raises.

An arbitrator awarded a 10-percent salary hike to blue-collar employees of the United Public Workers Union. Hong said the Hawaii Government Employees Association, the largest of the government unions, is in arbitration demanding raises totaling $130 million.

"At this point in time, we can't afford that. Our fund balance is only in the 80s no money would be left for UHPA and for HSTA or the UPW workers," Hong said.

Leaders of the faculty union disagree.

"We don't believe and we, we know the arbitrated settlements don't do anything for the university faculty one way or another," UHPA leader J.N. Musto said.

Union members took their case to UH regents going into a breakfast meeting Friday. The union's board meets next Saturday to decide when to schedule a strike vote.