STAND. COM. REP. NO.447

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2003

RE: S.B. No. 469

 

 

Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2003

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Labor, to which was referred S.B. No. 469 entitled:

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

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to prohibit employers from requiring employees or prospective employees to relinquish their rights under the State's fair employment practices law, as a condition of employment.

The Hawaii Civil Rights Commission (Commission) testified in support of this measure. The Department of Labor and Industrial Relations and Society for Human Resource Management-Hawaii Chapter testified in opposition to the measure.

Your Committee finds that employment agreements that require an employee or prospective employee to relinquish rights accorded under chapters 368 and 378, Hawaii Revised Statutes (HRS), are inherently unfair and coercive due to the unequal bargaining positions of employer and employee. These include agreements that require, rather than allow the arbitration of employment discrimination complaints.

Although it is the Commission's position that the parties cannot negotiate away its enforcement jurisdiction, allowing employers to impose mandatory arbitration agreements will have the effect of discouraging employees from filing such complaints with the Commission. Employees would be forced to seek relief through the arbitration process, and those who could not afford to advance the costs of arbitration would be without legal recourse. The purpose of this measure is to prohibit such mandatory agreements and to protect the rights of employees to seek relief from discriminatory employment practices from the Commission.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Labor that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 469 and recommends that it pass Second Reading and be referred to the Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Labor,

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BRIAN KANNO, Chair