[ OUR OPINION ]

Scrapping reforms could
lead to state layoffs

THE ISSUE The Legislature has overridden Governor Lingle's veto of a bill that restores mandatory arbitration of state white-collar employees.

DEMOCRATS in the state Legislature have effectively relieved Governor Lingle of her campaign pledge not to lay off state workers. By changing the ground rules to assure state employees large wage increases that the state cannot afford, the legislators have drastically narrowed Lingle's choices in finding a way to meet her constitutional requirement to balance the state's budget.

Former Gov. Ben Cayetano pointed out that the state Constitution does not compel implementation of collective bargaining agreements, only that the Legislature and executive branch balance the budget. The Legislature may leave Lingle with a decision of whether to adopt that assertion in court, lay off numerous state employees or reduce funding of state programs in deplorable ways.

The Democrats called for this week's special session ostensibly to override Lingle's vetoes of bills having to do with a Maui air ambulance, rights of landowners to build homes on farmland, social services, financial audits of state agencies and the Korean War Commission, but that explanation was shibai. It is obvious now that the session was orchestrated by the powerful Hawaii Government Employees Association to collect chits from legislators whose campaigns the union financed. The other bills were mere subterfuge.

HGEA, which represents 24,500 white-collar workers, and the blue-collar Public Workers Union gladly forfeited their members' right to strike in the 1980s and found that mandatory arbitration of their contracts was a bonanza. Forced mediation virtually guaranteed regular pay increases for public workers. So while the state's economy has been struggling over the past four years, HGEA members have enjoyed 15 percent pay raises.

Cayetano, an advocate of government involvement in social welfare, was forced to cut funding for programs for the poor and disadvantaged while government workers received pay raises. At one point, Cayetano vowed to refuse to fund the arbitrator's award for HGEA pay raises, but he did not follow through.

Instead, Cayetano was able to persuade the 2001 Legislature to enact civil service reforms that gave mandatory arbitration a deserved death and restored the right to strike for most state and county employees. State nurses, firefighters, police officers and prison guards were left as the only public employees with arbitrated contracts.

In the special session, both the House and Senate voted strictly along party lines to override Lingle's veto of a bill that will restore binding arbitration for HGEA members -- Democrats voting for the override, Republicans against -- with one notable exception. The most knowledgeable legislator in the area of labor law, Senate Majority Leader Colleen Hanabusa, a lawyer who represents unions in labor-management disagreements, voted against the override.

In this case, Hanabusa acted courageously and responsibly as a representative of the state, realizing that binding arbitration would benefit public employees at the expense of those who rely on state assistance. Her fellow Democrats acted shamefully as pawns of big labor in Hawaii.