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Editorials
Friday, March 3, 2000

Hawaii State Seal

State civil service
reforms are in trouble

Bullet The issue: Many of Governor Cayetano's proposals for civil service reform have been rejected by Senate and House committees.

Bullet Our view: Most Democrats won't fight the public employee unions.

WHEN Governor Cayetano announced his proposals for civil service reform, he challenged the power of the public employee unions. It comes as no surprise that the unions are succeeding in watering down his program in the Legislature.

Senate and House committees have approved measures that scrap Cayetano's proposal to cut the number of vacation and sick-leave days given to new state and county employees. Instead, the Senate bill would make these benefits issues to be negotiated in collective bargaining.

This is a clear victory for the unions. They can be expected to fight strenuously any attempt to reduce these benefits in contract negotiations. And if they make any concessions on these issues, they will insist on concessions by the state on other issues.

The governor had decried the total of 55 days a year of vacation, sick leave and holidays state and county employees now receive, calling it excessive -- as it certainly is. He proposed to limit new employees to 10 days' vacation and 10 days' sick leave, with increases in the number of days earned through continuous service to a maximum of 14 days. Public employees currently receive 21 days of vacation and 21 days of sick leave.

Such policies have left government in Hawaii saddled with excessively generous employee benefits that it can't afford. But most Democrats don't want to tamper with those benefits because they owe their election to the support of the public employee unions and have no appetite for any confrontation with them -- whatever the cost to the taxpayers.

The committees also rejected Cayetano's proposal to end compulsory arbitration. The governor had proposed that the right to strike be restored to all unions except for the police and firefighters, in return for the abolition of arbitration. He also proposed eliminating the category of essential workers .

Cayetano's point was that arbitrators have often been overly generous in their awards to the unions and the public interest would be better served if the unions didn't enjoy this advantage. Although the unions would have the leverage of strike threats, work stoppages exact a price from the strikers that union members may often be reluctant to pay. Again, the unions were having none of it.

One of the governor's more significant proposals did make the cut in the Senate committee but not in the House. This would allow the counties, the University of Hawaii and the Hawaii Health Systems Corp. to negotiate their union contracts separately. The counties have complained that the state has too much control over the negotiations under the present setup.

House Majority Leader Ed Case attacked the bill as a "crushing rejection" of the governor's reform efforts and said he may try to amend it on the floor.

There is still time to salvage the proposed reforms, but it would take an outpouring of support from the public -- which has so far been lacking.

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Pinochet precedent

Bullet The issue: Gen. Augusto Pinochet has left Britain for his Chilean homeland after being determined unfit to stand trial in Spain for human-rights abuses.

Bullet Our view: This case established new rules for the arrest and extradition of perpetrators of human-rights abuses.

OPPONENTS of Gen. Augusto Pinochet were disappointed with the decision that he be allowed to return home to Chile instead of being required to stand trial in Spain on charges of human-rights abuses. But Pinochet's arrest and 16-month detention in Britain were a resounding advance in international law, establishing universal jurisdiction for prosecution of human-rights crimes. Other perpetrators of atrocities can no longer rest comfortably.

Pinochet is believed to have been responsible for the death or disappearance of more than 3,000 people during his 17-year authoritarian rule of Chile. He stepped down from the presidency in 1990 but remained commander of the army until March 1997, when he was made senator for life under the constitution he wrote.

He was recovering from surgery for a herniated disc in London when he was arrested on a Spanish warrant alleging human-rights abuses.

Britain's High Court ruled that Pinochet was protected by diplomatic immunity. However, a House of Lords panel, in a 3-2 ruling, reversed the decision and allowed Pinochet's arrest to stand, even though he was head of state at the time the alleged atrocities occurred. British courts were given authority to proceed with extradition.

On the basis of a doctors' report requested by the government of Chile, British Home Secretary Jack Straw brought an end to the case, determining that Pinochet's failing health had produced a "memory deficit" that would have compromised his ability to understand legal proceedings.

Although Pinochet was allowed to fly home to Chile, his case established a principle that may be applied to other human-rights abusers.

Its first application was the arrest last month of Hissene Habre, the former president of Chad, on charges of being responsible for political killings, torture and the disappearance of opponents. He was arrested in Senegal, where he has been living in exile since 1990.

In January, the U.S. Supreme Court denied an appeal by Elizaphan Ntakirutimana, who is challenging extradition from Texas to an international tribunal in Tanzania. He is accused of playing a role in the massacre of several hundred Tutsis during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

While Pinochet may feel relief at avoiding prosecution, other perpetrators of human-rights abuses now can be brought to justice, wherever they may be. The rules have changed for the better.






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John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher

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A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor




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