STAND. COM. REP. NO.56

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2001

RE: S.B. No. 59

 

 

Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2001

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Labor and Tourism and Intergovernmental Affairs, to which was referred S.B. No. 59 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT,"

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to ensure that public employees excluded from collective bargaining are compensated at the same level as their included counterparts.

Testimony in support of the measure was received from the Public Employees Management Association of Hawaii and the Hawaii Government Employees Association, Managerial and Confidential Employees Chapter. The Department of Human Resources Development (DHRD) opposed passage of the measure.

Your Committees find that under existing law, excluded employees are assured of receiving commensurate benefits and salary increases with whatever is negotiated for collective bargaining unit 13. However, under Act 253, Session Laws of Hawaii 2000, the provision of law that guaranteed this commensurate treatment was deleted. The deletion has thus concerned your Committees in that it leaves open the possibility that excluded employees may be treated less favorably than those belonging to collective bargaining units.

DHRD testified that although it opposes the passage of the measure, it is not the department's intent to treat excluded employees less favorably than their included counterparts with regard to fashioning compensation and benefit packages. However, DHRD would like the flexibility to craft compensation and benefit packages, which although different, will be at least equal to or better than those agreed upon with collective bargaining units.

DHRD had concerns that the language proposed in the measure would be interpreted to mean that any compensation or benefit adjustments negotiated with bargaining unit 13, would then have to be identically applied to excluded employees. In recommending the passage of this measure, it is not your Committees' intent that a line-by-line or item-by-item comparison be applied to compensation and benefit adjustments for excluded employees. Rather, your Committees believe that if, for example, government employers are willing to offer a higher salary increase in lieu of providing additional leave, then the employers should have the flexibility to offer such a proposal; provided that the overall value of the compensation and benefit package is at least equal to that negotiated with bargaining unit 13.

Your Committees believe that the measure provides DHRD with the flexibility to craft innovative compensation and benefit packages that will serve as enticements and rewards to becoming public sector managers while ensuring that across-the-board reductions in salary and benefits do not occur.

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Labor and Tourism and Intergovernmental Affairs that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 59 and recommend that it pass Second Reading and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Labor and Tourism and Intergovernmental Affairs,

____________________________

DONNA MERCADO KIM, Chair

____________________________

BOB NAKATA, Chair