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Legislature strikes
deal to build
new prison
Public employee unions will
By Richard Borreca
compete with private operators
to run the facility
Star-BulletinPublic labor unions proved a strong but not omnipotent force as the Legislature cleared the decks of the final pieces of legislation just before midnight last night.
The last item to be resolved was a new state prison. Legislators, after consulting with Gary Rodrigues, United Public Workers head, agreed to building a prison within the state with both private operators and the public employee unions given a chance to compete to operate the facility.
The action came after Gov. Ben Cayetano had repeatedly threatened to spike any prison built and run by the state.
"I'll veto the prison. If they override my veto, I won't build the prison," Cayetano said.
The prison bill, like the others agreed upon last night in conference committee, must be approved by the full House and Senate Tuesday before being signed into law by Cayetano.
The Legislature found an equally resolute union lobbying force as they tried to approve Cayetano civil service reforms.
House and Senate negotiators, Rep. Dwight Takamine and Sen. Bob Nakata, called the compromise a "landmark action in modernizing government operations."
Several of the key reforms called for by Cayetano were not approved, including:
Eliminating overtime pay in calculating retirement benefits;
"I was a little disappointed that two strikes (and you're out) for drugs didn't pass," Cayetano said. The governor, however, took the initial assessments of the civil service bill to be positive.
"If we got 50 percent what we proposed, there is reason to feel good," Cayetano said.
Not included by either the governor or the Legislature this year are public employee pay raises, even though an arbitrated settlement for the 23,000 members of the Hawaii Government Employees Association had been completed. Union leaders are looking for next year's Legislature to take up the pay issue.
The civil service reform measure is designed to give employers more flexibility in dealing with workers. It would allow management to reward unionized managers who are productive and would allow management to punish managers who are not productive.
Drug tests would be required of new hires, rather than existing employees.
It allows "experimental modernization projects," to streamline the workplace.
And the proposal increases the number of issues that can be considered in collective bargaining.
Lt. Gov. Mazie Hirono called the bill a "strong start."
Former House Speaker Joe Souki said that Cayetano's original reform list "wasn't realistic" but the new bill "was a step forward."
That same idea of progress was echoed by Rep. Ed Case, the House Democratic leader, who called the bill "a few baby steps into the river."
"But, we have a long way to go before we get to the other side," Case added.
Mike McCartney, state human resources director, who managed the bill for Cayetano, said the administration got much of what it requested.
Russell Okata, Hawaii Government Employees Association, said he was "obviously disappointed" that the Legislature wanted to change some of the terms for future contract negotiations, but added that the bill should make government more efficient.
The proposal amends the definition of collective bargaining to spell out that wages include the number of incremental and longevity steps, the number of pay raises and the movement between steps and between pay ranges.
The new bill also says that in arbitrated settlements, the arbitrator doesn't have to consider the ability of the state to raise taxes when determining whether state and county workers should get raises and how much. But the bill doesn't include Cayetano's request that most public workers get the right to strike to replace binding arbitration.
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