Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2004

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Labor and Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs, to which was referred H.B. No. 2025, H.D. 3, entitled:

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to prohibit an employer from discriminating between employees on the basis of gender through the payment of wages to an employee at a rate less than that at which an employee of the opposite sex is paid for equal work, with certain exceptions.

Testimony in support of this measure was submitted by the Hawaii State Commission on the Status of Women, the Hawaii Civil Rights Commission, the Hawaii League of Women Voters, Hawaii Women Lawyers, the Community Alliance on Prisons, and a private citizen.

Testimony in opposition to this measure was submitted by Alaka'i Mechanical Corporation, Hawaiian Host, Hale Ola Kino, Queen Kapiolani Hotel, the Society for Human Resource Management, Kapalua Bay Hotel & Ocean Villas, and two private citizens.

Comments on this measure were also submitted by the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations.

Your Committees find that under the current law, an employer is prohibited from discriminating against an employee in compensation or in the terms, conditions, or privileges of employment on the basis of the employee's gender. Additionally, further protection against the same and related types of discrimination based upon sex is provided for under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Pay Act of 1963, 29 U.S.C. §206(d). Despite the existence of these prohibitions, currently in Hawaii wage disparity continues to exist where a woman earns only eighty-four cents for each dollar earned by a man. The effect of such a wage disparity negatively impacts the financial security, health, and well-being of women and families, contributes to the existence of depressed wages, reductions in standards of living, and increases in poverty rates, prevents the maximum utilization of available labor resources, and increases the number of labor disputes.

Your Committees believe that the passage of this measure will signify the State's recognition that discrimination on the basis of gender with regard to the payment of wages continues to exist within the State. In further recognition of this problem, your Committees find that the establishment of a task force to review information relevant to gender-based pay inequities and make recommendations to the Legislature for specific actions to correct such inequities will also reaffirm and solidify the State's commitment to ensuring that such discriminatory practices are finally eliminated.

Accordingly, your Committees have amended this measure by:

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Labor and Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 2025, H.D. 3, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 2025, H.D. 3, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.