Bill Text: HI HB479 | 2010 | Regular Session | Amended

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Bill Title: Employment

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Republican 6-0)

Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2009-05-11 - Carried over to 2010 Regular Session. [HB479 Detail]

Download: Hawaii-2010-HB479-Amended.html

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STAND. COM. REP. NO.  40

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                , 2009

 

RE:   H.B. No. 479

      H.D. 1

 

 

 

 

Honorable Calvin K.Y. Say

Speaker, House of Representatives

Twenty-Fifth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2009

State of Hawaii

 

Sir:

 

     Your Committee on Labor & Public Employment, to which was referred H.B. No. 479 entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO EMPLOYMENT,"

 

begs leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose of this bill is to determine the effectiveness of the expansion of the 60-day notification requirements of a closure or partial closure of businesses that were intended to strengthen protections for Hawaii's dislocated workers.

 

     The Department of Labor and Industrial Relations (DLIR) and Retail Merchants of Hawaii testified in support of this bill.  ILWU Local 142 testified in opposition to this measure.

 

     Hawaii's Dislocated Workers Law protects employees who face termination from employment due to a sudden closure or partial closure of a business as a result of a sale, transfer, merger, or transaction of business interests by requiring the employer to provide 60-day notification of the closure or partial closure to employees and the Director of Labor and Industrial Relations.  However, certain forms of business transactions, such as bankruptcies and divestitures, were not covered under this law.  This required the enactment of Act 5, First Special Session Laws of Hawaii 2007 (Act 5), which in essence expanded the 60-day notification requirement to include additional forms of business transactions.

 

     While Act 5 was intended to help ameliorate the effects bankruptcies and divestitures would have on the lives of affected employees, your Committee notes that concerns were raised at the time of enactment that Act 5 could have an adverse effect on businesses, thereby inadvertently having a greater impact on employees.  This measure will allow the Legislature to better understand the impact of Act 5 on both employees and employers.

 

     Your Committee has amended this measure by:

 

     (1)  Requiring that DLIR include recommendations to any problems it finds with Act 5, including any proposed legislation, in its report to the Legislature; and

 

     (2)  Making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for clarity, consistency, and style.

 

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Labor & Public Employment that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 479, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 479, H.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Economic Revitalization, Business, & Military Affairs.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Labor & Public Employment,

 

 

		____________________________ KARL RHOADS, Chair