Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi’s administration has finalized a multimillion-dollar settlement with the Hawaii Government Employees Association involving dangerous COVID-19-era work.
To that end the City
Council voted unanimously May 14 to authorize the city’s request to settle approximately $41.4 million in claims for temporary hazard pay for HGEA’s affected employees and members for essential government services performed during the pandemic.
HGEA — the state’s largest public-sector union, representing nine bargaining units within the city and county alone, including Ocean Safety Department lifeguards — will see its THP payout cover the period from March 5, 2020, to March 5, 2022.
The mayor’s office confirmed that the terms of the agreement include $15,000 payments for those HGEA employees who filed hazard pay claims on or before March 18, 2022, and $7,500 payments for those employees who did not file claims.
“HGEA members provided core services to the public during the COVID-19 pandemic, as did members
from other unions across the city’s workforce,” Ian Scheuring, the mayor’s deputy communications director, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. “As essential workers, and pursuant to their collective bargaining agreement, HGEA members have certain rights to
hazard pay.”
“We appreciate the patience of our HGEA employees while the details of the settlement agreement were being finalized, and we appreciate the services that they provided the public during the pandemic,” he added.
HGEA, the last of three major government employee unions on Oahu to receive THP moneys,
declined to comment on the settlement.
In March the Council voted to authorize and resolve THP claims for affected employees and members of the State of Hawaii Organization of Police Officers and United Public Workers of
Hawaii who worked during the pandemic.
Claims for both unions — estimated to cost the city roughly $76 million — covered the period March 5, 2020, through March 5, 2022, the city said.
City officials had set aside about $115 million to settle hazard pay claims and grievances arising from the
pandemic.
Previously, city Managing Director Mike Formby told the Star-Advertiser the city would consider “temporary hazard pay for the city firefighters and employees of Oahu Transit Services — TheBus and TheHandi-Van.”
He noted those payments will require “THP appropriations” in the city’s fiscal year 2026 budget, which is under Council consideration for possible approval by June.
This week Scheuring said “that in the interest of fairness for all of our city employees who worked during the pandemic that we are going to try to work out
settlements with the firefighters and our transit
operators.”
“So that is still very much on the table,” he added. “Now that we’ve gotten the hazard pay agreements done with the unions for whom it was contractually obligated, our attention will turn to THP agreements with those other unions.”
However, Scheuring explained, “That entire process is still pending.”
The Council’s latest vote comes after both the city administration and Council pledged to repay eligible, unionized city workers
employed during the pandemic THP in order to avoid legal entanglements.
Hawaii’s government worker unions, including HGEA, UPW and SHOPO, pressured the state and its four major counties to pay back their respective memberships for pandemic-era work.
In 2024, UPW Local 646 — among other city unions — worked to gain COVID-19-related hazard pay from the city for its membership via arbitration.
On July 30, arbitrator and former Hawaii Supreme Court Justice Simeon R. Acoba Jr. issued a decision on UPW’s hazard pay grievance against the city.
According to UPW documents filed in August with the 1st Circuit Court, the union will receive a hazard pay differential of 15% for the designated two-year
period.
Originally, UPW sought a 25% pay differential based on individual workers’ minimum pay grades, UPW spokesperson Maleko
McDonnell previously told the Star-Advertiser.
And with nearly 37,000 members statewide, HGEA received a THP settlement for nearly 1,300 former and current Hawaii County employees in March.
The union’s Big Island workers were granted a 15% hazard pay differential for work performed during the same two-year time frame, a union news release asserts.
