Category Archives: Labor

State DOD investigates toxic work environment, + foreclosure bills

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What’s going on over at the state Department of Defense? Makes you wonder…are these guys armed?

The DOD is in the process of hiring two consultants to conduct confidential, one-on-one interviews with up to 70 employees “to obtain comprehensive, genuine, and sincere feedback on their feelings about their work environment.”

The interviews will be analyzed to identify “issues, concerns and problems that prevent the development of a positive and wholesome work environment.”

The DOD proposes splitting the work between Dr. Neal Milner, Emeritus Professor at UH Manoa and former campus ombudsman, and Mr. Henry Kanda, an experienced personnel manager, each being paid $7,500.

The proposed investigation into the DOD’s workplace environment was disclosed in a request filed last week to exempt the contracts from standard procurement requirements.

I wonder how many of these investigations into toxic office atmosphere would have to be done if employees could request them on an “as needed” basis?

A joint hearing of the House Committees on Judiciary, and Consumer Protection and Commerce this afternoon will be considering several bills relating to mortgage foreclosures, including HB1875, which would implement the further recommendations of the mortgage foreclosure task force.

A task force of the Community Associations Institute’s local chapter is recommending alternative language that they say would deal more appropriately with situations faced by Hawaii’s thousands of condominiums.

To get in the mood, you might want to check out ProPublica’s package of stories on the foreclosure crisis, or the Mortgage Fraud Blog, both of which offer lots of informative reading.

30+-year old stories from the Hawaii Observer still relevant to today’s issues

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I recently came into possession of a stack of old Hawaii Observer newspapers. If you don’t remember the Observer, here’s the dry basics as listed in the UH library’s collection:

HAWAII OBSERVER
Frequency: Monthly
Paper: Dec 3, 1974 to Mar 9, 1978
Indexed in: Hawaii Pacific Journal Index

The observer tried to deliver long form, feature-style writing on key issues and events. Leafing through the old issues provides quite a bit of insight into modern Hawaii politics. Warren Iwasa, a sometimes commenter here, served as an editor. Maybe he can provide some additional first-person context.

In any case, two articles caught my eye in my first pass through the collection, and looked relevant enough to today’s headlines to scan the oversize pages in sections and then piece them back together digitally.

First: “The education of a teacher negotiator,” by the Obserer’s associate editor, Brian Sullam, is a long interview with Joan Husted, who was then HSTA’s lead negotiator. September 18, 1973.

Husted, who retired at the end of 2007 after 36 years with HSTA, has been in the news again this week with comments on the rejection of the state’s latest contract offer.

She told the Star-Advertiser:

Husted said the contract rejection has serious ramifications for relations among the Department of Education, the state administration and the union.

“It’s not a minor event,” she said. “It’s a major, major event. How do you problem-solve from this point forward? How is the administration assured that HSTA can sell what they agreed to? And how can HSTA agree to things without knowing where their teachers are? This is a very serious problem.”

In any case, Husted’s Observer interview gives a description of bargaining with the state is quite revealing, providing a good “feel” for the process. At one point, she was asked whether you ever raise your voice during negotiations.

Oh, yes. You raise your voice, but you have to do it selectively. There are two things that destroy a negotiator. Temper and fatigue. It is often said that the guy who will get the agreement will be the guy who outlasts the other fellow. You can’t afford to lose your temper at the table because you will say things that you don’t want the other side to know. But there are times when you selectively lose your temper, you get absolutely and positively indignant that they would even suggest something like that. It is a lot of bluff. The other thing to watch for is the point when you are so fatigued that you are willing to give away anything just to get away from the damned table. It is a hard process to describe.

Ah, but she described it so well!

Second: “How do we get from here to there, and how much is it going to cost?” by Tuck Newport, February 24, 1977.

The names are different, the costs much lower than today’s numbers, but this Hawaii Observer story about Honolulu’s rail transit debate covers the same issues that continue to surround the debate 35 years later.

The story describes the frustration of city council members after failing to get good answers to their questions about the financial plan for the rail. Cost, and the depth of public support for rail, were open questions.

Newport wrote:

There is no evidence of widespread popular support for rapid transit. City Council members and State legislators, even those sympathetic to transit, uniformly report opposition to it among their constituencies.”

Back in 1977, then-Mayor Frank Fasi was proposing to ask the legislature for county authority to impose a one-percent sales tax, with half going for transit.

“What if we don’t get a one-percent sales tax? asked Councilman Frank Loo.

“That is a decision for you to make,” replied Fasi.

Then, in another eerily relevant passage, Newport wrote:

At the back of the Council Chambers, Representative Ben Cayetano, chairman of the House Transportation Committee, told reporters that he would oppose release of the State’s share of matching funds for the environmental impact statement and preliminary engineering. Despite the Legislature’s tentative commitment to a 14-mile guideway, Cayetano has grown increasingly skeptical about the proposed system: “I’m having second thoughts. About its route. About its cost. About whether we really need it.”

And so it goes on this Sunday morning.

Oh, by the way, say “Happy Birthday, Ms. Meda!”

Bill would make public employment a zone of secrecy

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And away we go!!

The 2012 session of the Hawaii State Legislature started yesterday, and tomorrow morning the first bill that would hammer away at the public’s right to know will have a public hearing before the House Committee on Labor & Public Employment. The hearing is scheduled for 10:05 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. in Conference Room 309.

HB 1356 was introduced last year by Rep. Karen Awana but died without a hearing. If passed into law, the bill would mean we would no longer know much of anything about people on the public’s payroll.

The bill is certainly not the first bid to limit information about public workers, but it could be the most ambitious.

Public testimony should urge Committee Chair Karl Rhoads to stop this bill now and support the need for openness and accountability in public employment.

Thanks to Nikki Love of Common Cause Hawaii for calling attention to the bill and the upcoming hearing.

The bill would shield even the most basic information, the names of public employees, from disclosure.

Here’s what else would be rendered state secrets under this bill:

• business address

• business telephone number

• job description

• education and training background

• previous work experience

• dates of employment

• position number

• type of appointment

• occupation

• bargaining unit

• employing agency, department, division, branch, office, section, etc.

• island of employment

The only information deemed “public” would be a job title and associated salary range.

The bill’s introduction says it is in reaction to Civil Beat’s requests for public information about public employees, and subsequent publication of employee rosters and salaries.

Although the bill refers to the possible increased risk of identity theft, none of the published information was of the detailed and personal nature that would contribute to such a risk.

Testimony on HB 1356 can be easily submitted online.

Court rejects challenge to state use of surplus health funds

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Here’s my favorite quote that surfaced yesterday:

Arizona State Senator Lori Klein, Herman Cain’s Arizona campaign chair, quoted by CBS News: In politics, she said, “we want a virgin to do a hooker’s job.”

Ooops. An abbreviated version of this entry was posted by accident this morning.

Isn’t language a great thing? That third-person phrasing makes it sound like the accident just happened. I didn’t have to cop to the error at all! Spin in its purest form.

But, indeed, I did err. So I’ve plunged back in with a fuller description of the court case, below.

The Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals ruled earlier this month against the HGEA and several individual union members who challenged the use surplus funds held by the Hawaii Public Employees Health Fund, predecessor of the Employer-Union Health Benefits Trust Fund, for purposes other than improving benefits or reducing premium costs.

At issue were millions in refunds paid by insurers like HMSA when actual costs came in below premium payments for each annual period.

Plaintiffs contended they had vested property rights which were unconstitutionally taken by the state when the legislature amended the law to return the employers’ share of surpluses to the state and counties.

Their lawsuit claimed employees had been overcharged because the surpluses should have been used to reduce premiums, and sought damages because they weren’t informed premiums might be refunded.

Further, they argued that “laws directing that the premium surpluses be returned to employers are unconstitutional,” (quoting from the decision), and that the health fund trustees, and the state, breached their fiduciary duties to members.

The Circuit Court ruled against the plaintiffs and tossed the case out back in 2006. The appeal has been slowly moving along since then.

In this 29-page ruling, the Intermediate Court rejected the union’s various contentions and held that the statutes governing the health fund “did not create vested property rights or contractual obligations” that prevented refunding of premium surpluses.

The opinion does trace the evolution from the health fund to the EUTF, and those more knowledgeable may glean some useful points relevant to the broader issue of whether changes can be made in employee health plans without stumbling over constitutionally-protections of vested employee benefits. That, of course, is the bigger battle going on as the state looks at was to reduce long-term liabilities.