STAND. COM. REP. NO.1378

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2003

RE: H.B. No. 29

H.D. 1

S.D. 1

 

 

Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2003

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Ways and Means, to which was referred H.B. No. 29, H.D. 1, entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO MEAL BREAKS,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to require employers to provide employees a thirty-minute meal break during any duration of work of more than eight hours.

In addition, this measure requires employers to allow an employee to express breastmilk during any meal break required by this measure or as provided in any collective bargaining agreement.

Your Committee finds that neither state nor federal wage and hour laws currently require employers to provide employees over the age of sixteen any meal break, regardless of how many consecutive hours they may be required to work. Employees who work an eight-hour shift should be granted a reasonable period to consume a meal sometime during the work shift.

Your Committee further finds that certain collective bargaining agreements already require a meal break for covered employees. Additionally, certain employers, primarily in the transportation and utilities industries or those operating facilities with continuous operations, require an exemption from the meal break requirement to maintain the flexibility required by their continuous operations.

Your Committee has amended this measure by extending an exemption from the meal break requirement to any employer that is:

(1) A common carrier of passengers or a power generating utility, regulated by chapter 269, Hawaii Revised Statutes; or

(2) The operator of a continuously operating facility that is regulated by environmental permits.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Ways and Means that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 29, H.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 29, H.D. 1, S.D. 1.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Ways and Means,

____________________________

BRIAN T. TANIGUCHI, Chair