STAND. COM. REP. NO.  148

Honolulu, Hawaii

                , 2011

RE:   H.B. No. 465

      H.D. 1

Honorable Calvin K.Y. Say

Speaker, House of Representatives

Twenty-Sixth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2011

State of Hawaii

Sir:

     Your Committees on Labor & Public Employment and Economic Revitalization & Business, to which was referred H.B. No. 465 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO DISLOCATED WORKERS,"

beg leave to report as follows:

     The purpose of this bill is to provide some help to dislocated workers by including businesses that employ any number of persons in the provisions requiring notification about a business's upcoming closure and the provision of a dislocated worker allowance to help workers to recover from the loss.  This bill also mandates the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations (DLIR) to enforce the notification requirements.

     The ILWU Local 142 supported this bill.  DLIR and the Retail Merchants of Hawaii opposed the measure.

     Your Committees have amended this bill by:

     (1)  Restoring the original definition of "covered establishment", thus retaining the applicability of notification of closure and dislocated worker allowance requirements to businesses employing 50 persons or more; and

     (2)  Making a technical, nonsubstantive amendment for consistency.

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Labor & Public Employment and Economic Revitalization & Business that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 465, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 465, H.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Judiciary.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Labor & Public Employment and Economic Revitalization & Business,

____________________________ ANGUS L.K. MCKELVEY, Chair

____________________________ KARL RHOADS, Chair