Resetting the
bargaining table

Hawaii's system of
collective bargaining is
quirky, unique—and
ready for an overhaul

By Rob Perez
Star-Bulletin

It's a quirky system.

One management consultant who has studied operations in more than 400 cities and counties nationwide says it's probably unique, too.

When the public-worker unions negotiate contracts with the state and county governments, they don't haggle with the governments individually. Everybody participates.

On one side of the bargaining table: the union.

On the management side: executives from the state and Hawaii's four counties. One team representing all five governments.

The state, as the largest player and the only one with operations statewide, gets four votes in deciding management proposals. Each of the counties gets one. Five votes are needed to adopt a proposal.

The system has been in place for nearly 30 years, but many say an overhaul is needed.

Because the counties each have different financial conditions, needs and problems, which aren't accounted for in the current system, the counties need to be able to negotiate their own collective bargaining agreements, said Honolulu Mayor Jeremy Harris.

What's in place now contributes to problems of government inefficiencies, Harris and others say. At times, the system makes no sense, they add.

In negotiations for the police contract, for instance, the state still has four votes on the management side, even though it has no police officers, and Honolulu, which has roughly three-fourths of the officers in the state, has only one vote.

Because five votes are needed to agree on a management position, nobody is ever clearly in charge, Harris said. "It's a shifting coalition of votes that puts together a management package," he said. "You can't run (negotiations) like that."

Some union members who have participated in bargaining sessions say management representatives often seemed in disarray or unfamiliar with management positions.

"They didn't understand each other's proposals," said Antonie Wurster, a Hawaii Government Employees Association member who was part of the union's bargaining team in 1996-97.

For reasons like that, unions usually have the upper hand in contract talks -- or at least are able to speak with one voice, some former government managers say.

Bill Evans, the general management consultant who has studied hundreds of governments across the country, including Honolulu's, said he was unaware of any other state that handles collective bargaining negotiations like Hawaii. "It's just crazy," he said, citing the police example.

Bills giving the counties autonomy in collective bargaining have been introduced at the Legislature in recent years, but they never went anywhere.

The joint management practice was created in 1970 as part of the law authorizing collective bargaining for state and county workers.

James Takushi, the state's human resources director, said the system helped the governments adhere to two laws already on the books: that Hawaii's civil service regulations applied to all state and county workers and that government employees on all islands got equal pay for equal work.

Also, the joint approach was designed to guard against the poorer neighbor island counties getting short-changed in the distribution of state resources, Takushi said. But if the counties can handle their own negotiations now, he added, "Then we should take a look at" changing the system.

Some union leaders also are receptive to change.

"I think there's a lot of merit in an idea like that," said HGEA executive director Russell Okata.