WAILUKU - State and county workers could end up with different contract agreements on pay, furloughs, medical costs or other major issues, Mayor Charmaine Tavares said Tuesday.
Gov. Linda Lingle and the four county mayors are expected to meet again this week to discuss proposals for a "master contract" covering employees in both the state and counties. But that contract may include provisions
leaving it open to negotiate separate "supplemental contracts" on issues the governor and mayors still do not agree on, including employees' share of medical costs and pay cuts.
"That's conceivable," Tavares said.
The mayor spoke a day after a key negotiating session that saw Lingle, the mayors and representatives of the Hawaii Government Employees Association and United Public Workers meet in contract talks after a long deadlock.
The unions made an informal proposal that included a 5 percent pay cut for workers. State negotiators are expected to present a counterproposal to the mayors later this week, and if the mayors agree, it would then be presented to the unions, Tavares said.
The bargaining sessions have been even more difficult than usual, because they have essentially required three-way negotiations. The governor and mayors have had to work out their own disagreements before sitting down jointly with the unions.
The governor gets four votes on the contract, and each mayor gets one. In previous years, the governor was able to win the support of a single mayor for the state's proposal, gaining a majority and taking control of the government's side of the negotiating table.
But that didn't happen this year.
"This year, the mayors have come together and decided we need to stay together as a group," Tavares said. "If it's going to be a vote, it's going to be all four of us."
Medical costs are one area where the governor and mayors have disagreed. While the mayors have supported maintaining the existing split that has workers paying 40 percent of their coverage, Lingle has said the state cannot afford to spend any more on health care, and insisted any increases in premiums or other costs must be shouldered by workers.
The mayors also disagree with Lingle's proposal for cost savings through furloughs and pay cuts, and felt her plan to furlough state workers for three days each month was "draconian," Tavares said.
"We think that's too much," she said.
A Honolulu judge earlier this month blocked Lingle from ordering the furloughs for state employees, saying the furloughs should be negotiated in collective bargaining with public employee unions.
Tavares called Monday's meeting positive and said the unions' proposal was "a good starting point."
She said the unions' indication that they would be willing to negotiate separate supplemental agreements with the counties and state was a major step in the bargaining process.
Previously, the unions stuck to agreements that would give all of their members the same contract, allowing supplemental contracts only on minor technical issues, she said.
"I think they've softened their position on that, but we'll see," she said.
* Ilima Loomis can be reached at iloomis@mauinews.com.
