STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2714

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 2594

       S.D. 1

Honorable Colleen Hanabusa

President of the Senate

Twenty-Fourth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2008

State of Hawaii

Madam:

     Your Committee on Judiciary and Labor, to which was referred S.B. No. 2594 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO LABOR,"

begs leave to report as follows:

     The purpose of this measure is to allow public and private sector employees to certify a person or labor organization as their exclusive representative for collective bargaining purposes, absent an election and where no other representative is certified as the exclusive representative.  This measure also requires immediate collective bargaining between parties once a person or labor organization is certified as the exclusive representative.

     Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Hawaii State AFL-CIO.  The Hawaii Government Employees Association, ILWU Local 142, and Hawaii State Teachers Association testified in support of the measure with amendments.  The Department of Labor and Industrial Relations and Office of Collective Bargaining submitted testimony in opposition to this measure.

     Your Committee finds that this measure will allow employees to unionize if a majority of employees signed cards expressing their desire to join a union, a practice that currently, an employer does not have to recognize.  This method will allow an alternate means of unionizing.

     Your Committee has amended this measure to remove section 1, relating to streamlining union certification and facilitating initial collective bargaining agreements for public employees.

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Judiciary and Labor that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2594, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2594, S.D. 1, and be placed on the calendar for Third Reading.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Judiciary and Labor,

____________________________

BRIAN T. TANIGUCHI, Chair