LEGISLATURE 2003 STATUS REPORT
Consumer protection/Labor

Here are many of the major bills under consideration at the Legislature. Listing which bills are passing and which are failing halfway through the legislative session is risky.

Failing bills can be revived, living bills can be rewritten, and key lawmakers can change their minds.

This listing of bills is an effort to show readers where issues appear to be headed. Public participation and lobbying can change the outcome of any issue listed here.

Cell phone ban
(HB 49 HD2)

Prohibits the use of a hand-held cellular telephone while operating a motor vehicle upon a public highway, except for emergency purposes. Allows for hands-free headsets.

Meal breaks
(HB 29 HD1)

Requires employers to provide employees with at least a 30-minute break for eight hours of work, unless a collective bargaining agreement otherwise contains a provision for employee meal breaks.

Family leave
(HB 389 HD2)

Requires employers who provide sick leave to allow employees to use up to 10 days of accrued and available sick leave for family leave purposes. Requires more if covered by collective bargaining contracts.

Drivers' licenses
(HB 324 HD1)

Enables a person who is ineligible to obtain a Social Security number to provide alternative documentation for a driver's license application.

Cremation facilities
(HB 1495 HD1)

Establishes regulatory scheme for crematoriums, including registration requirements establishing procedures for handling remains, securing authorization to cremate, and establishing limitations on liability of crematory.

Managed competition
(HB 510 HD2)

Establishes a system of managed competition in the state and to regulate privatization. State agencies would determine every odd-numbered year which services may be performed more efficiently and economically via privatization. Requires individual departments, rather than financing agencies, to establish performance standards, quality measures and procedures to monitor the effectiveness of agency determinations to use agency employees or private contractors to perform services.

Child labor
(HB 1198 HD2)

Prohibits minors from working in adult entertainment; establishes misdemeanor offense for any person who knowingly violates the Child Labor Law; modifies and clarifies work-hour restrictions for minors.

Home loan protection
(HB 1438 HD2)

Prohibits mortgage brokers from engaging in predatory lending practices. Regulates "high cost" home loans. Also requires written disclosure to borrowers that the borrower could lose their home and any equity in the home if they fail to meet obligations under the loan.

Employee Health Fund
(HB 391 HD2)

Delays, if necessary, the transfer of civil service employees and retirees from the Public Employees Health Fund to the Hawaii Employer Union Health Benefits Trust Fund from July 1, 2003 to a year later, in the event the new program is not ready.

Employment practices
(SB 469)

Prohibits an employer from including in an employment document as a condition of hiring, any provision interfering with the protected right of an employee to file a charge in an investigation or relinquish any right or protection.

Telephone solicitations

Prohibits phone solicitors from placing calls to residents who are registered on a no-call list. Establishes a Web site and database containing the no-call list.

Property condemnation

Restricts the eminent domain powers of the counties to ensure that private property, if acquired by a county through its eminent domain powers, is acquired only for public uses and not for private use.

Union contracts

Allows the University of Hawai'i, the counties and the state hospital system to negotiate their own labor contracts.