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Kokua Line June Watanabe |
Union rules give
libraries 3-day weekendQuestion: What is the rationale behind state libraries also closing on a Saturday when a holiday falls on a Monday? I don't see the connection, and the three-day closing makes it difficult for patrons who often have only Saturdays to use the library.
Answer: A three-day holiday weekend for public employees has long been a part of their labor union contracts.
Regarding public libraries, when those three days off occur depends on what day the holiday falls and what the schedule of a particular library is, according to Wayne Tanaka, departmental personnel officer for the Hawaii State Public Library System's Human Resources Office.
It turns out the library system and the Hawaii Government Employees Association recently negotiated a new agreement that requires more uniformity and consistency to library closures for seven specific holidays.
That agreement, which took effect May 1, affects those seven holidays (out of a total of 13 state holidays) when they fall on a Friday, Saturday, Sunday or Monday.
The affected holidays are New Year's Day, Presidents Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Veterans Day and Christmas Day.
Your question came just after Memorial Day, which fell on Monday, May 31, and which was the first holiday affected by the new agreement.
"All of the libraries that normally open on Saturday or Sunday were required to close on Saturday and Sunday, in addition to the holiday observed on Monday," Tanaka said.
The traditional three-day holiday weekend for most government workers would be Friday, Saturday, Sunday or Saturday, Sunday, Monday, depending on when the holiday fell.
But, the three-day closure could vary from one library to another, and for some library workers, their holiday day off depended on their regular schedules.
Say a library normally opens on a Saturday and the holiday falls on a Monday. If Monday is a worker's normal day off, he/she would observe the holiday on Tuesday, according to the old union agreement.
For the other six state holidays not affected by the new agreement, some libraries still will open on Saturdays, depending on when the holiday is observed and what their regular schedule is.
Unlike most governmental agencies, the library system has many facilities open on weekends and in the evenings.
The library system "regrets the inconvenience to our customers who are accustomed to the Saturday and/or Sunday hours that we normally provide," Tanaka said of the change.
Mahalo
To a good Samaritan and a police officer. About 4:15 p.m. last Tuesday, I was traveling east on the H-2 freeway and blew a tire at the H-1 merge. I had pulled over only a couple of minutes when a man in a yellow Nissan XTerra stopped. An HPD officer showed up a few minutes later and shielded the man while he changed my tire. The man would not give me his name, but said he was a teacher. I feel fortunate to live in a place where the spirit of aloha and kokua still prevails! -- Mary Forde
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