STAND. COM. REP. NO.993

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2003

RE: S.B. No. 931

S.D. 2

 

 

Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2003

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs, to which was referred S.B. No. 931, S.D. 1, entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO HAWAII VICTIMS LEAVE ACT,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to enact a victims leave law to allow victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking to take paid or unpaid leave from work.

Testimony in support of this measure was received from the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations, Department of Human Resources Development, Hawaii State Commission on the Status of Women, Hawaii State Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Domestic Violence Clearinghouse, and three individuals. Testimony in opposition was received from The Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii and Society for Human Resource Management.

Your Committee finds that the prevalence of domestic abuse, and domestic or sexual violence including sexual assault and stalking, is so common as to affect the lives and well-being of significant number of people, mostly women, who also have to work. The victims need time off from work to seek medical or psychological services, contact victim service organizations, relocate residence, or take legal action. This measure provides victims with the opportunity to take such protective actions without fear of employer reprisal.

Your Committee is mindful of the effect this measure can have on the profitability of the employer. For this reason, your Committee has amended this measure as follows:

(1) Deleting from the definition of "victim services organization", references to an organization carrying out a domestic violence program, a legal services organization, and a domestic violence coalition or a sexual assault coalition, and clarifying that counseling services provided by a victim services organization must be provided by a professional counselor;

(2) Deleting the option that victims leave be provided with pay;

(3) Changing how victims leave is calculated from a fiscal year basis to a calendar year basis;

(4) Inserting language that an employer employing 50 or more employees must allow an employee up to 30 days of unpaid victim leave time per calendar year, and an employer employing not more than 49 employees must allow 5 days of unpaid leave time per calendar year;

(5) Requiring an employee taking up to five days of leave to provide certification in the form of a signed statement to the employer, and requiring an employee taking more than five days to provide a signed statement or a police or court record;

(6) Deleting from the list of persons authorized to provide certification that an employee needed the victims leave, members of the clergy;

(7) Providing that no leave is protected until certification is provided to the employer;

(8) Deleting the option to provide corroborating evidence relating to the domestic or sexual abuse as a means to certify the need for victims leave in excess of five days per calendar year;

(9) Clarifying that the reasonable notice to the employer to take leave requirement need not be complied with if the employee or employee's minor child is in imminent danger;

(10) Deleting the requirement that the employer allow leave to be taken intermittently or on a reduced work schedule, and deleting the provision that would allow an employee to substitute any period of leave for an equivalent period of leave from other employment benefits;

(11) Clarifying that an employee denied leave by an employer in wilful violation of this Act may file a civil action against the employer; and

(12) Making technical, nonsubstantive amendments.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 931, S.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 931, S.D. 2.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs,

____________________________

COLLEEN HANABUSA, Chair