Honorable Calvin K.Y. Say

Speaker, House of Representatives

Twenty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2002

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Labor and Public Employment, to which was referred H.B. No. 1451 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this bill is to establish judicial and law enforcement procedures to address workplace violence.

The Society of Human Resource Management, the Hawaii Hotel Association, the Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii, the Hawaii Visitor Industry Security Association, the American Society of Industrial Security, and the Joint Hawaii Police Association testified in support of this bill. ILWU Local 142 testified in opposition to this measure.

Confusion exists as to the jurisdiction district and circuit courts have over restraining orders to protect employees from workplace violence, particularly restraining orders filed on behalf of an organization, corporation, or other legal entity. This has created a longstanding problem for companies attempting to provide a safe working environment when dealing with potentially violent and threatening employees.

Although your Committee understands the seriousness of workplace violence and the terrible toll it can have on all those affected, a balance must be struck between workplace safety and basic tenets of American society: the right to privacy and the right against indiscriminate search and seizure.

Accordingly, your Committee has amended this bill by:

Your Committee notes that its purview is limited to labor and public employment issues. As such, concerns about the violation of constitutional rights and related issues should be more appropriately considered by your Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Labor and Public Employment that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 1451, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 1451, H.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs.