Final vote set on bill requiring talks when workers reassigned

By Robbie Dingeman
Advertiser Staff Writer

Lawmakers in the state House and Senate are poised to take final votes today on a bill that would require the government to negotiate with public worker unions when it transfers, reassigns or lays off workers.

The bill evolved from the Hawai'i Supreme Court's decision in January that Honolulu city officials did have the right to transfer 10 Pearl City refuse workers to the Honolulu base yard rather than pay them to do nothing.

When the city switched to automated refuse trucks in 2001, it left too many workers in Pearl City and not enough in Honolulu. When management transferred them, the United Public Workers union that represents the employees challenged the move.

The union won before the Hawai'i Labor Relations Board — which said the city should have negotiated the move — but the state Supreme Court's decision overturned that victory and the issue shifted to the Legislature in recent weeks.

State and city employer representatives oppose the bill because they say it would limit their basic ability to manage. City Human Resources Director Kenneth Nakamatsu said he's against the bill because he believes limiting the ability to transfer, assign and lay off workers "would seriously affect government operations" and cost taxpayers money in increased overtime pay.

But public employee unions say the bill would ensure continued fairness and balance in the relationship between the employers and the union. Without the new bill, said Randy Perreira, deputy executive director of the HGEA, the union fears employers could maintain that "management rights reigned supreme and that nothing to do with management rights could be negotiated."

Nakamatsu said the court's decision made it possible for the city to get those refuse employees working again. "UPW had 10 employees not working at all, sitting on the bench for several years," he said.

He said the Honolulu Police Department also testified against the bill, saying it would create a management nightmare if it had to negotiate before each personnel transfer. "It's costly to the taxpayers and it's not the most efficient way to operate," Nakamatsu said.

But Perreira said the bill stops short of banning such transfers. "It just requires negotiations," he said.

He said the HGEA worries that without the new bill, employers would be prevented from "arbitrarily and recklessly transferring employees from one location to the other and the impact on the employee and his or her families."

For example, if the University of Hawai'i decided to move its College of Tropical Agriculture from Honolulu to Hilo, the union would not quarrel with the decision, he said. And that would force employees to move to another island, sell homes and uproot their families, so the union would try to negotiate a moving allowance and other impacts of the decision, Perreira said.

"For us, it all goes to balance," he said.

The measure, Senate Bill 1352, started out as a bill to require state employees be given "up to seven days of paid leave each calendar year to serve as a bone marrow donor and up to 30 days of paid leave each calendar year to serve as an organ donor."

But the bill was reworked to deal with the transfer, assignment and layoff issue.

Reach Robbie Dingeman at rdingeman@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-2429.