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w~..~,,..~r ~•.1 ~ 7 ,~~O~Y Working Together LOCAL 152. AFL-CIO iri'/~// for Hawaii O ~5ms Hawaii Govemment Employees Association 495 Manono Straet, Hilo, Hawaii 96720. Phone (808) 935-6841, FAX (808) 961-?437 T ~ R~ December 17, 1997 y1 By Golitlly Covrlcsi r~-_~y Testimony of Garv Yoshivama. Hawaii Division Chief in suoaort of Resolution No 195-98 and 205-98 relating to funding cost items for bargaining units 02. and 12 Good morning. My name is Gary Yoshiyama. I serve as the Hawaii Division Chief for the Hawaii Government Employees' Association. I am speaking in favor of and seek your support of Resolution No. 195-98 and 205-98 relating to funding cost items for bargaining units 02, and 12. Our uniformed fellow union members in SHOPO and the public employers recently went through the arbitration process of final and binding arbitration. As a result the arbitration panel after considering numerous factors in accordance with our collective bazgaining law, decided on a salary increase of approximately 5.19% over a two year period. You have approved similar increases for our members working along side of police officers and we request your favorable consideration of Resolution No. 195-98 relating to cost items for bargaining unit 12 employees. As to Resolution No. 205-98, I have the following comments which I submitted but did not read . to the Council on December 17, 1997. The comments are applicable to Unit 12 in part and HGEA's Unit 02. Our Union has for more than a quarter of a century honored the public policy on settling our collective bargaining contracts. That public policy is outlined in Chapter 89 of the Hawaii Revised Statutes. Time and again we reached mutual agreement with the public employers. The public employers have submitted the cost items to the appropriate legislative bodies and those legislative bodies have funded our mutual agreements. We have once again negotiated in good faith with the public employers and reached a mutual agreement. However at this late juncture in this process a new concern has been raised and threatens funding for all pending contracts. Several council members have raised the concern that the County Council has not been provided timely information while the negotiations process was ongoing and the possibility that the negotiations process is in need of change. Prior to 1970, Hawaii's Territorial and State public policy was to discuss and approve pay related matters at the legislative level, be it the Territorial or State legislature, be it the Board of Supervisors or Council at the County level. There were exceptions whereby a legislative body authorized the governor or a mayor to study the issue and establish a fair and equitable pay rate or ~a 0 3- o~ - nuo its S yr„~~ea F c ~t.t, ars .lul 6 X96