Pay-freeze legislation
By Mike Yuen
unconstitutional, says
police union lawyer
Star-Bulletin
If a pay-freeze bill the Legislature passed this week prevents police throughout the state from getting salary increases, the constitutionality of the measure will be challenged in court, says the attorney for the Hawaii police officers union.
"We think it's a taking of property without due process," said Michael Green, who represents the State of Hawaii Organization of Police Officers.
SHOPO is in binding arbitration seeking a 20 percent increase over four years. Its current contract expires June 30 -- the same day the pay freeze is to go into effect.
It is deceptive and unfair to deprive SHOPO of any settlement that may come out of arbitration, Green asserted. "You've got some furious cops," he said.
Yesterday, Gov. Ben Cayetano and Senate President Norman Mizuguchi also questioned the constitutionality of freezing public workers' salaries for the next two fiscal years.
Mizuguchi (D, Aiea) said the Senate "reluctantly went along" with the House, which pushed the proposal.
The House had some leverage because the pay freeze was packaged in one bill providing the counties with $22 million in excess earnings from the state's and counties' retirement fund to help them pay for retroactive pay raises for workers belonging to the Hawaii Government Employees Association and the United Public Workers.
"We felt that the obligation to help the counties had priority," Mizuguchi said. "So we went along with the two-year pay freeze. I'm not happy about that because I think it's unconstitutional. Collective bargaining should be as stipulated in Chapter 89 (of the Hawaii Revised Statutes): that the Legislature only comes in at the end to approve or reject pay raises."
Cayetano has told public workers unions that the state's budget woes prevents the administration from offering any pay increases the next two fiscal years. He said the pay-freeze legislation went further than what he wanted.
It would have been sufficient, Cayetano said, if leaders of HGEA and UPW would publicly state that they agreed to not seek any raises for two years.
Only HGEA and UPW needed to be part of the agreement because the raid on the retirement fund was to fund the retroactive raises for HGEA's and UPW's county workers, Cayetano said. There was no need for a freeze to apply to other public employees, such as teachers and university professors, he added.
House Finance Chairman Dwight Takamine (D, Hilo) said the House initiative was an attempt to balance concerns over the escalating cost of salaries and fringe benefits for government workers and what government could pay.
Takamine said it may, indeed, be up to the courts to determine the constitutionality of the pay freeze, which is accomplished by prohibiting negotiations for pay raises for the next two years.
Honolulu Mayor Jeremy Harris has told SHOPO that the city can't afford pay raises the next two years. The city is proposing a four-year pact in which raises would be given in the third and fourth years.
