Honorable Calvin K.Y. Say

Speaker, House of Representatives

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2004

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Labor and Public Employment, to which was referred H.B. No. 2025 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this bill is to prohibit employers from paying wages to an employee at a rate less than the rate at which the employer pays wages to another employee of the opposite sex for the same or substantially similar work, except when the difference in compensation is based on a seniority system, a merit system, a system that measures earnings by quantity or quality, or a differential based on any factor other than sex.

This bill would create a new chapter of the Hawaii Revised Statutes (HRS) that would, among other things:

Testimony in support of this measure was received from the Hawaii State Teachers Association, the League of Women Voters of Hawaii, and concerned citizens. The Hawaii State Commission on the Status of Women, Hawaii Reserves Incorporated, and the Hawaii Civil Rights Commission supported the intent of this measure. The Department of Labor and Industrial Relations opposed this bill.

Your Committee finds that the State of Hawaii has a long and distinguished history in support of civil rights and equality in the workplace. Hawaii was the first state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s and has been a leader in establishing constitutional and statutory protections for equal treatment of men and women.

While your Committee wholeheartedly supports the underlying policy this bill seeks to achieve, your Committee recognizes that the statutory scheme proposed herein conflicts with the existing framework of laws intended to protect employees from discrimination in the workplace.

Chapter 378, HRS, (Chapter 378) prohibits discrimination in employment on the basis of race, sex, sexual orientation, age, religion, color, ancestry, disability, marital status, arrest, and court record. In conjunction with Chapter 368, HRS, Chapter 378 provides a uniform set of procedures for the enforcement of Hawaii's policy against discrimination.

Your Committee believes that it would be more appropriate for the prohibition against discrimination in the payment of wages to be placed within the existing framework of Hawaii's discrimination statutes rather than within separate chapter.

In addition, your Committee acknowledges that federal equal employment laws such as the Americans with Disabilities Act, allows employment in particular jobs to be limited to persons of a particular classification if the employer can show that the classification is an actual qualification for performing the job.

Accordingly, your Committee has amended this bill by deleting its contents and replacing it with language that:

Technical, nonsubstantive amendments were also made for purposes of clarity, consistency, and style.

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. 2025, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 2025, H.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Judiciary.