STAND. COM. REP. NO. 262

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 638

Honorable Donna Mercado Kim

President of the Senate

Twenty-Eighth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2015

State of Hawaii

Madam:

     Your Committees on Higher Education and the Arts and Judiciary and Labor, to which was referred S.B. No. 638 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO COLLECTIVE BARGAINING,"

beg leave to report as follows:

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to allow graduate students of the University of Hawaii to engage in collective bargaining.

     Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the University of Hawaii Professional Assembly, University of Hawaii Graduate Student Organization, University of Hawaii Student Caucus, Hawaii State AFL-CIO, UNITE HERE Local 5, and twenty-six individuals.  Your Committees received testimony in opposition to this measure from the Office of Collective Bargaining, University of Hawaii System, and one individual.

     Your Committees find that graduate students provide invaluable service in their employed positions of research and instruction.  This service is critical to the continued success of the University of Hawaii.  Despite the valued nature of their work, these students are often paid inadequate wages and are statutorily barred from engaging in collective bargaining as a means by which to improve their wages and standard of living.

     Your Committees further find that graduate students earn an annual wage that is in the lowest ten percent of the nation, which is particularly significant when this low wage is considered in conjunction with the higher costs of living in Hawaii than elsewhere in the nation.

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Higher Education and the Arts and Judiciary and Labor that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 638 and recommend that it pass Second Reading and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Higher Education and the Arts and Judiciary and Labor,

________________________________ GILBERT S.C. KEITH-AGARAN, Chair

____________________________ BRIAN T. TANIGUCHI, Chair