STAND. COM. REP. NO.523

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2001

RE: S.B. No. 1243

S.D. 1

 

 

Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2001

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Education and Labor, to which was referred S.B. No. 1243 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO EDUCATION,"

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to establish a separate bargaining unit under the State's collective bargaining law for educational officers.

The measure accomplishes this by maintaining educational officers in bargaining Unit 6 and establishing a bargaining Unit 14 for other personnel of the Department of Education who are under the same salary schedule.

Testimony in opposition to the measure was received from the Department of Education and the Hawaii Government Employees Association.

Your Committees find that the measure attempts to address the issue of disparate vocations within the same bargaining unit. As the law exists, labor agreements for bargaining Unit 6 are negotiated without regard to the different roles and responsibilities employees within bargaining Unit 6 perform.

Your Committees have amended the measure by deleting reference to the proposed bargaining Unit 14 and instead, established sub-units within collective bargaining Unit 6, one for educational officers, and the other for Department of Education personnel who are professional, administrative, or technical employees who are not educational officers or faculty. Your Committees have also included an effective date of July 1, 2050, as a means to ensure further discussion on the issue.

Your Committees believe that establishing sub-units within the same bargaining unit provides added flexibility in the development of suitable compensation packages for each profession.

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Education and Labor that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 1243, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 1243, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Education and Labor,

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BOB NAKATA, Chair

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NORMAN SAKAMOTO, Chair