Bill gives too wide leeway to unions

It’s a difficult balance to strike, without a doubt. Hawaii’s public worker unions deserve a right to negotiate over issues that are core to their members’ pay and working conditions; the state and county officials who serve as their employer need the right to manage the labor force in the best interest of the taxpayers who foot the bills.

By passing Senate Bill 410, the Legislature has staked out a position that tips the balance toward the unions to a degree that works contrary to the public interest. Gov. David Ige should veto this bill and urge the stakeholders to resume work on a more reasonable clarification of language guiding collective bargaining in Hawaii.

SB 410 deals with “the allowable scope of collective bargaining negotiations regarding the rights and obligations of a public employer,” but several groups involved in those negotiations are rightly concerned that it goes too far.

It removes the reference to “a permissive subject of bargaining” in HRS Section 89-9. This, say the bill’s opponents, has the effect of making the full spectrum of topics a matter for negotiations and, thus, grievances by the public employee unions.

For their part, advocates for those unions argue that there’s no reason why any subject shouldn’t be on the table.

But it’s plain to most people who have watched labor relations in this state for any length of time that this would further complicate what’s already a monumental challenge: making government function more efficiently.

State Sen. Gilbert Keith-Agaran, who chairs the Committee on Judiciary and Labor, introduced the bill. He said the genesis of the bill was that in recent contract discussions, issues that had been negotiated previously were suddenly off the table. This is despite the fact that the current law asserts that provisions of agreements in effect on or after June 30, 2007, would not be invalidated.

Keith-Agaran said the employers’ concerns about negotiations and grievances bogging down routine managerial actions are unfounded.

“Management still has all the authority that they should have,” he said. “The unions are trying to make sure that things that were always negotiated remain negotiable.”

According to the current law, agreements must not “interfere with the rights and obligations of a public employer” to handle a range of managerial issues, including directing workers, determining work standards and qualifications for positions, hiring, promoting, transferring and assigning employees.

But bill opponents counter that this assurance of managerial rights does come into conflict with another proposed provision: The bill would allow negotiations over the implementation of those duties “if it affects terms and conditions of employment.”

That does seem to negate management prerogatives.

Elected government officials are under intense political pressure from powerful public worker unions, but they also must keep an ear to the ground and hear the rumbling of taxpayer angst.

Efforts to reduce government costs often run up against union opposition. The initiative to privatize management of the state’s costly public hospital system comes to mind. Because they provide care to underserved, remote communities, treating lower-income patients insured at lower reimbursement rates, these hospitals and clinics run at a loss, needing taxpayer subsidy each year.

Coming to terms with the unions on this was a knotty process. If everything becomes a subject for a collective bargaining wrestling match, even less ambitious efficiency initiatives could easily founder.

There must be a middle ground, one that defines the scope of negotiations more clearly, enabling unions to ably represent members’ interests without disabling those of their employers. Senate Bill 410 is not that solution.