Union chiefs challenge
proposed labor bill

The Hawaii Government
Employees Association will oppose
the bill if it gets a hearing

By Craig Gima
Star-Bulletin

Public workers labor unions -- traditionally some of the Democratic Party's biggest supporters -- say they do not understand why Democrats in the state House want to change Hawaii's collective bargaining and civil service laws.

But Gov. Ben Cayetano said he believes some of Hawaii's labor laws should be modified and that he would support proposals to change binding arbitration and to remove supervisors from unions.

United Public Workers head Gary Rodrigues said he's not sure what is behind the Democrats' bill.

"I've been involved in collective bargaining in the private sector for 33 years and in government since it started," Rodrigues said. "I would like someone to tell me what is wrong with the collective bargaining law."

Among other things, the bill would allow merit pay for state workers, limit collective bargaining to wages, hours and benefits, broaden job descriptions and take managers out of unions.

Wayne Yamasaki, deputy director for the Hawaii Government Employees Association, said the union would oppose changes in the collective bargaining law if the bill gets a hearing.

Yamasaki said the union has always been open to merit pay increases, but the state and counties have never been able to come up with guidelines or standards to determine which workers will get higher pay.

The state already has ways to reward workers with bonuses or higher job classifications, he said.

"I'm a little bit confused as to what their intent is," Yamasaki said, calling some of the assumptions behind the bill faulty.

Rodrigues said removing discipline procedures from contract negotiations is "ludicrous."

"When you don't have discipline as a function of collective bargaining, you have to represent the workers," he said. "And where do you go? You go straight to the courts. It's outrageous."

Cayetano, a Democrat, said he would reserve judgement on the idea of limiting collective bargaining but added he's always backed taking managers out of the unions.

"I've supported the notion that principals shouldn't be in the union," Cayetano said at a news conference Monday.

"If the legislature wants to do that, they'll have the support of me."

The governor also suggested other changes in the law that go further than the House bill.

Cayetano said binding arbitration forced the state to give pay raises to state workers which the government could not afford.

"The arbitrators do not take into account the bigger picture faced by the state," Cayetano said.

He said he would like to see the law changed so arbitrators would be forced to look at the overall fiscal picture of the state before making their decisions.

He also supports a bill to change the way pensions are determined. "I don't think overtime should be included in the calculation of your pensions, and that is costing us a fortune at the prisons and even at the airport," he said.

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Gov wants consolidated
state maritime authority

By Craig Gima
Star-Bulletin

A Cayetano administration bill to create a statewide Hawaii Maritime Authority to oversee the development and operation of Hawaii's harbors was to be introduced today in the Legislature.

In what may be a preview of the debate over the agency's creation, small boat owners in the Ala Wai Marina, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and environmentalists turned out this morning against a House bill to create a Honolulu Waterfront Authority.

But commercial harbor users like Matson and Young Brothers and some waterfront unions agree with the concept of consolidating state agencies to create a single statewide harbor authority.

Young Brothers president Glenn Hong said his company now has to deal with a number of different state agencies and departments in charge of different aspects of harbor operation and development.

He likes the idea of a single entity to handle a "very critical area of the economy."

But small boat owners don't like the idea of mixing small boat marinas and the major ports in the state.

"We are opposed to placing recreational boating special funds in a state-controlled commercial harbors account," said Richard Johnson of the Ala Wai Marina board.

OHA expressed concern over the use of submerged lands, access rights for native Hawaiians and OHA's share of revenue from the use of ceded lands.

David Frankel, president of the Sierra Club Hawaii chapter, raised concerns about submerged lands and the government's commitment to preserving Keehi Lagoon in the House bill.

But he said he had not seen the administration bill.

"There's definitely a need to consolidate environmental programs," he said. "It's unfortunate there's not a push to do that; instead we're going to consolidate maritime programs and business and commercial interests."

The administration is asking this Legislature to establish the Hawaii Maritime Authority with a 12-member board of directors, with funding details and the authority's scope to be worked out in later public hearings, said Rick Egged of the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism.

But, Egged said, "this authority will not do anything different with ceded lands and submerged lands than what the state does now."

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Texas prison warned
conditions are lacking

By Pat Omandam
Star-Bulletin

The Justice Department has warned a Texas prison that houses nearly 100 Hawaii inmates to fix conditions it deems unconstitutional, says a national prison expert from the American Civil Liberties Union.

Alvin Bronstein, director emeritus of the ACLU National Prison Project, told three legislative committees yesterday he was informed by the department that it is sending a letter next week to the Dickens County Correctional Center telling officials to correct certain patterns and practices at the facility.

Those include the level of medical care, as well as security and health and safety issues, such as sanitation and food service, Bronstein said. He said the prison could be sued if it doesn't respond to the findings within seven weeks.

"They are finding that the prison there is unconstitutional, and they are going to make demands that certain things to be fixed," he said.

Bronstein's comments came while he briefed state lawmakers on alternatives to incarceration.

He criticized the state's overcrowded prison system, saying the situation has reverted to 1985 levels, when the ACLU won a federal consent decree allowing the Oahu Community Correctional Center to house no more than 891 inmates.

"The animals have better conditions at the (Honolulu) zoo than what we have at OCCC today," he said.

Bronstein said a plan by Gov. Ben Cayetano to build a 2,300-bed prison on the Big Island isn't needed because the state already has enough bed space.

What's needed, he said, are intermediate sanctions for convicts who aren't a threat to the community. Such people would skip imprisonment in favor of electronic monitoring, boot camps, nonprison residential programs and drug courts, he said.

"Believe me, you're going to pay for the 2,300-bed prison in the long run," he said.

First Circuit Judge Bambi Weil, however, insisted more bed space is needed to make convicts realize there is an "immediate and well understood consequence" if they fail at such alternatives programs.

Weil added the state already has laws on the books to offer alternatives to incarceration which just need to be implemented. For example, she cited a report on the Drug Court program that shows the state saved between $600,500 and $850,000 in the first half of 1996.

City Deputy Prosecutor Iwalani White told lawmakers more money needs to be spent upfront for prevention rather than afterward for prisons. She wants more residential drug rehabilitation programs and facilities for pregnant teen-age girls and dangerous mentally ill adolescents.

"Where we choose to spend our money is a really good indicator of what our priorities are," White said.

House Judiciary Chairman Terrance Tom (D, Kaneohe) disagreed with the contention that fewer prison beds are better. Tom said he doesn't believe that people convicted of property crimes are less likely to be a threat to the community than those who commit violent crimes.

"I don't subscribe to that philosophy, because human behavior is a very unpredictable thing," Tom said.

Tom said the state's budget situation is forcing lawmakers to consider the bottom line -- public safety.

Meda Chesney-Lind, a professor of women's studies and an expert on Hawaii crime, said part of the problem lies in the increased media attention on crime stories in the past decades.