Hawaii’s rich labor relations history was one of the principal elements that shaped the state’s sociological, political and economic landscape today. The improved wages and conditions supported the rising living standards and ultimately the influence and empowerment of the organized workforce that forms the islands’ middle class.
It’s a different Hawaii today, with challenges facing both sides of the employer-employee pact. And even if that relationship seems hardened over many decades, Labor Day provides an occasion to review what has changed over the past century. Those changes suggest an imperative to rethink how the agreement is structured.
For the worker: Especially during the last few decades, average salaries have not kept up with the high cost of living in this state. That has magnified the economic inequality experience nationally, a gap that continues to grow.
This problem persists despite the low unemployment rate. Housing costs in particular have formed an insurmountable barrier for many working families. Last year the Hawaii Appleseed Center for Law and Economic Justice, a nonprofit advocacy group, updated its 2012 “State of Poverty in Hawai‘i” study to take a status report since the economic recovery stabilized.
It concluded that economic inequality remains the chief cause of poverty, a problem made worse by the cost of housing and other factors. Increases in the minimum wage have been won; this year’s Legislature finally passed the earned income tax credit to help reduce tax liability for working people in the lower-income bracket. These initiatives and others aiming to whittle away at the economic gap are justified.
At the same time, especially in the public sector, there have been problems that the unions representing these workers must address.
Specifically, they should accept more flexible work rules that would enable greater efficiency. When the costs are borne by the taxpayer, that should be a paramount concern.
The woeful disconnect between current rules and the job requirements is on display across government agencies. One vivid example: the unwieldy staffing rules that have prevailed among city waste management workers, especially in the delivery of bulky waste pickup. Far too often, crews are unavailable to deliver adequate service unless they drive up overtime hours.
A city audit on this problem has pressed the city administration to consider returning to its old pickup-by-appointment system. That could control costs. So could a more collaborative approach, streamlining the staffing and routes to save on costs. The workers’ labor representatives should be part of that solution.
Or there’s the pervasive practice of “pension spiking,” an abuse of overtime pay in the last three years of a public employee’s career to inflate the calculation of their lifetime pension benefit. That must be disallowed, and if the unions want to see regular rates of pay increased, they should accept reform.
Changing a labor-relations culture of intransigence will be difficult. In this context, the governor’s nomination of state Rep. Marcus Oshiro to chair the Hawaii Labor Relations Board bears watching. It’s a small factor, but not inconsequential. Oshiro, the former state House labor chairman, has cited his work with the Cayetano and Lingle administrations on civil service reforms.
Oshiro, an attorney whose law practice has involved administrative resolution of worker disputes, could be in a position to influence the conversation on these issues. It will be interesting to see how this appointment will play out.
Hawaii is a long way from where it needs to be to manage labor concerns of the 21st century, in which automation and other factors will reshape the workforce. Starting now down that path would be a wise impulse.
