2011 Legislative Session

The Hawaii 2011 Legislative Session is upon us. Wage Standards Division is tracking some familiar issues and some new measures.

HB341/SB1076 Relating to Employment Practices. At the hearing the other day for SB 1076 Judiciary and Labor Chairperson Clayton Hee commented that he is interested in passing a measure that resembles SB 2883 CD1 from the 2010 Session that passed and was vetoed by Governor Lingle. It is likely the idea of putting in protected class, those who are terminated or discriminated against for using their sick leave appears to have a favorable audience this year. Department testimony was in support with some concerns.

Minimum Wage is also up for discussion. Many of the measures are working to use a CPI index for automatic yearly updates. We expect the SD1 version of SB1037, heard at Judiciary Labor on Feb 8 will remove that aspect from the measure. So far, no word on this from the House side. Department testimony was in strong support.

Required Meal Breaks for those working more than 5 hours has also been brought up in both the Senate and House, the Senate chose to pass it out for SD1. See SB1405 and the house deferred HB1316. There will be some interesting dialogue on this measure. The Department testimony is in support of the intent with comments.

The last thing I'll mention today is the prevailing wage measure passed out of the House Labor and Public Employment Committee yesterday, HB1434 in a HD1 version. I was down in the Senate Labor Committee when the comments were made and when the House LAB voted so I didn't hear what they're going to change. I'll reserve comments on that for later. I believe that Chair Rhodes understands our concerns that this is a fundamental change in the way prevailing wage investigations and penalties will be issued, I just wish there was an easy way to fix it without overhauling the majority of the Chapter 104 law. I think there is merit in giving Act 146, Session Laws of 2008, an opportunity to start working. Again, Department testimony was in support of the intent for enforcement. A big concern is that the method has produced a "Careful what you ask for" wide net that will hurt otherwise law-abiding contractors. In contrast, Act 146 , codified at 104-25(a)(3), focuses on cheaters, those who falsify records rather than simply make mistakes.