Posted on: Tuesday, November 27, 2001

Editorial
Putting the jobless to work, gainfully

With Hawai'i workers losing their jobs at an alarming rate, it's heartening to see the state stepping into the breach with an equivalent to the Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps.

Much of today's existing forest trail network was built by the old CCC. Now the state intends to put 220 to 250 people to work right away in cleaning up mosquito breeding grounds to combat dengue fever and to combat such pests as coqui frogs and miconia plants.

It's important to note that it's not make-work, but needed projects that aren't otherwise getting done.

It's fair to ask why, if the work is needed, the state doesn't put its own unionized workers on the task, or contract the work out to private companies, instead of creating this Emergency Environmental Workforce. If the state were routinely performing these jobs, the state or its private contractors would need to hire extra help.

Presumably this would require fewer workers, but the pay and benefits would be much better than the EEW's $9.96 an hour.

An acceptable answer is that this is a short-term emergency situation; that the economy will soon recover and these workers can soon go back to their old jobs.

The less acceptable answer is that it's a way to get work done on the cheap; that the state will get needed work accomplished at wages much lower than its prevailing union scale — and with no expensive side benefits, such as health care.

Dengue, coqui frogs and miconia are all genuine problems that the state so far has been unable adequately to address. There's great public benefit in putting people on these chores immediately.

It also helps to absorb some of the growing ranks of the jobless.

But let's make sure this isn't merely a cheap way to make an end-run around the state labor force.