Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2006

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Labor, to which was referred S.B. No. 2210 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to provide an employee with the option of substituting accrued paid leave, including vacation, personal, or family leave, for any part of the statutorily mandated four-week family leave period.

Testimony in support of this measure was submitted by the Hawaii State Teachers Association, the ILWU Local 142, the International Association of Machinist Union-Local Lodge 1979, the IBEW Local 1260, the IBEW Local 1357, the IBEW Local 1186, the Hawaii State AFL-CIO, and one individual.

Testimony in opposition to this measure was submitted by the Department of Human Resources Development. Comments on the measure were also submitted by the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations.

Your Committee finds that, under the current law, the substitution of accrued paid leave for statutorily mandated family leave is at the discretion of the employee or employer. Regrettably, some employers are arbitrarily exhausting an employee's accrued paid leave in substitution of leave that would otherwise qualify as family leave. The resultant exhaustion of accrued paid leave, such as vacation leave, compromises an employee's ability to later take leave for a vacation or some other absence that would not qualify as family leave. Therefore, your Committee determines that the employee should have sole discretion in determining the manner in which to utilize the employee's accrued paid leave in the employee's best interest.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Labor that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2210 and recommends that it pass Second Reading and be referred to the Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs.