STAND. COM. REP. NO.330

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2003

RE: S.B. No. 858

S.D. 1

 

Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2003

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Labor, to which was referred S.B. No. 858 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO TEMPORARY DISABILITY BENEFITS TO CARE FOR FAMILY MEMBERS WITH A SERIOUS HEALTH CONDITION,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to expand the temporary disability insurance program to provide benefits to employees who are unable to perform their employment duties because they leave work temporarily to care for their family members with a serious health condition.

Testimony in support of this measure was submitted by the ILWU Local 142 and the United Public Workers.

Testimony in opposition to this measure was submitted by the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations, the City and County of Honolulu Department of Human Resources, the Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii, and the Society for Human Resource Management.

Your Committee finds that the economic security of employees is adversely impacted when they must take unpaid leave to attend to the demands of caring for a family member with a serious health condition. Your Committee believes that most employees cannot afford to be on leave without pay and, additionally, other social, health, and economic crisis often result from this interruption in income.

Your Committee determines that the expansion of the temporary disability insurance program to provide wage replacement for employees who leave work to temporarily care for family members with serious health conditions is necessary to help balance the demands of work and family.

Your Committee, however, has amended this measure for purposes of clarity as follows:

(1) By amending the definition of "child" to refer to that of section 398-1, Hawaii Revised Statutes (HRS);

(2) By adding a definition for the term "reciprocal beneficiary" to refer to that of section 572-3, HRS;

(3) By moving the new language of section 392-21, HRS, to carve out a separate category of disability for employees who care for a family member with a serious health condition so that the exception of a disability resulting from an accident or disease connected with or resulting from employment as defined in section 386-3, HRS, or any other applicable workers' compensation law applies to that category; and

(4) By making other technical, nonsubstantive amendments.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Labor that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 858, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 858, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Labor,

____________________________

BRIAN KANNO, Chair