The measures left WSD is still watching are SB1076 Relating to Employment Practices and HB 1434 Relating to Public Works Projects. Both bills have passed in some form in both the Senate and House and now will likely be resolved in conference. The Division is always looking at better ways to enforce the law. In a perfect world everyone would voluntarily comply. There are definitely more out there that comply than don't and even more that think they are in compliance.
Senate Bill 1076 Relating to Employment Practices is trying to protect employer-employee agreements to provide sick leave and balance attendance policies that conflict with it. In its current form it only applies to employers with 100 or more employees, and there aren't that many in Hawaii and it doesn't include the State or county employers. The impact of this bill on our office is unknown. Also, the law as currently drafted just applies to those employees with a collective bargaining agreement ("cba") and our policy and practice is to make sure employees have exhausted all their grievance issues before taking on a claim. If there is a dispute on the enforcement of the cba, there may be cause to defer the issue to the NLRB.
House Bill 1434 Relating to Public Works Projects wants to change the way DLIR imposes a Notice of Violation from issuing one per investigation, to one per project. If this passes the imposition of the penalty will have to change as well. Where previously DLIR would penalize each section violated for each person for each project or a % of the back wages found due, for each Notice of Violation, if HB 1434 passes DLIR will only be able to assess penalties for one project at a time and will be limited to looking at 3 projects before someone is eligible for suspension. It is true that the majority of violations we find relate only to one project, but there are enough situations where complaints are registered against one employer by an employee who worked on several projects, sometimes as many as 13. These employers will be suspended under this new law, but will end up paying fewer penalties. The DLIR would still pursue back wages for the employee, either way.
But again, nothing is final yet--it's still a waiting game.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment
This is a limited public forum that serves as an official community page for the Wage Standards Division, Department of Labor and Industrial Relations to share information about the work of the Wage Standards Division and related issues to the people of Hawaii and our friends outside of Hawaii.
We welcome your comment on our topic or post, but please comment with “Aloha” since this page is family friendly. Please take personal responsibility for and be respectful in your comments.
If your comment is deleted per the provisions below, you have the option of sending your comment by sending an email that does not violate any laws, or by sending a hardcopy version of your comment to the following address:
Recipient Pamela Martin
Mailing address 830 Punchbowl St., Honolulu, HI 96813
email address: Pamela.b.martin@hawaii.gov
RE: Deletion of Comments.
We will delete a comment, content, or expression (“comment”) that disrupts, disturbs, impedes, is contrary to, is inappropriate for, or interferes with function of and ability of this limited public forum to fulfill its purpose, such as a comment that is:
■Off-topic;
■Profane or sexually explicit;
■Using an offensive term that targets a specific individual(s) or groups, including a term based on race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation;
■Invasive of a person's privacy;
■A commercial solicitation or advertisement, a chain letter, or a pyramid scheme;
■Containing personal information such as a driver license number, a social security number, and other information protected by law;
■Disclosing any detail about an ongoing investigation or court or administrative proceeding that could prejudice the process or interfere with the rights or claims of a person or entity;
■Part of or is a repetitive post copied and pasted by multiple users;
■Spam or could constitute spam; and
■Speech for which content-based restrictions are permitted, including incitement, obscenity, defamation, speech integral to criminal conduct, so-called “fighting words,” child pornography, fraud, true threats, and speech presenting some grave and imminent threat the Government has the power to prevent.
This page is subject to amendment or modification at any time.
Thank you for taking the time to read this page.