The Hawaii Government Employees Association wants to reopen negotiations with the Abercrombie administration on a two-year contract agreement reached in April because the union contends the United Public Workers received a better deal.

The HGEA’s contract contains a "favored nation" clause that enables the union to seek the same gains won by other public-sector unions during the collective bargaining process.

Most HGEA units agreed to a 5 percent pay cut and an equal split on health insurance premiums. The white-collar workers also received an extra six hours of paid time off each month, or nine days a year. The union’s nurses unit rejected the contract and has opted for binding arbitration.

The UPW ratified a new two-year contract this month that achieves 5 percent in labor savings through 14 unpaid days of leave this fiscal year and 13 unpaid days of leave next fiscal year, along with an equal split on health insurance premiums. The UPW, which represents blue-collar workers, has also been promised no layoffs during the contract.

"We are extremely serious and we will pursue this as far as we have to," said Randy Perreira, HGEA executive director.

Perreira said there are substantive differences in the two contracts that favor UPW. The most significant, he said, is between a pay cut and unpaid days of leave. A pay cut reduces a worker’s pay scale for all hours worked, including overtime hours, while an unpaid day of leave reduces salary only during the time off.

Perreira said the union is frustrated because he said the Abercrombie administration rejected unpaid days off — essentially furloughs — during negotiations with the HGEA.

Multiple sources familiar with the private labor talks this year said Gov. Neil Abercrombie and state negotiators were insistent on not using the word "furloughs" because of the stigma of the Furlough Fridays that closed public schools and state offices over the past two years.

In the UPW contract, the term is "directed leave without pay," but unpaid days off are the functional equivalent of furloughs. Abercrombie has said that there will be no interruption to public services when workers take their unpaid days off.

"Call it whatever you want," Perreira said. "We know what it is."

The HGEA demanded that contract negotiations be reopened in a Nov. 18 letter to Neil Dietz, the state’s chief negotiator.

Donalyn Dela Cruz, an Abercrombie spokeswoman, said the administration is waiting to receive official notice from the UPW that the union ratified the new contract before formally responding to the HGEA’s demand.

"We’re open to talking with HGEA," she said.

The "favored nation" status was a reward for the HGEA, the state’s largest public-sector union, for being the first of three public-sector unions to reach a new contract with the Abercrombie administration this year.

Abercrombie had called for 5 percent labor savings from the HGEA, the UPW and the Hawaii State Teachers Association to help balance the state budget. While the administration reached deals with the HGEA and UPW at the bargaining table, the state imposed its "last, best and final offer" on public-school teachers in July after the union’s board rejected the state’s terms. The teachers union is fighting the new contract before the Hawaii Labor Relations Board.