Opinion ID: 2599971
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: change in pay dates

Text: It is undisputed that, historically, public employees, including UH faculty members, were paid on the fifteenth day and the last day of each month. The Act 355 amendment authorized the governor to convert the existing predicted payroll system to an after-the-fact payroll system by gradually delaying each paycheck until the pay dates fell on the fifth and the twentieth of the month. The Defendants note that, traditionally[,] pay days for public employees were determined by statute, not by collective bargaining. See HRS § 78-13 (1993). Consequently, a statute that changes pay days does not violate any specific term of the collective bargaining agreement, and since the parties have not negotiated pay days, the fact that pay days are changed by statute does not interfere with whatever constitutional right the faculty has to organize for the purpose of collective bargaining. The Plaintiffs disagree, contending that: Before the payroll lag law, pay days were not set by statute. [HRS] § 78-13 historically required twice-monthly pay days, but did not specify them. HLRB's Order ... affirmed that[,] even in the face of Act 80 (1996), pay dates were not set by statute. Only since the advent of the payroll lag and Act 355 (1997) (intended to remove pay dates from the scope of collective bargaining) has the State attempted to specify paydays by statute. Statutory specification of paydays was certainly not a traditional practice as of 1968, when [a]rticle XIII, [s]ection 2, was adopted. In response, the Defendants reiterate that: The number of paychecks state employees receive each month has historically been set by statute, HRS § 78-13, although the specific dates were not specified. That statute, § 78-13, reserved for the Legislature the right to modify any salary periods by law. Significantly, this reservation of the Legislature's right to modify salary periods pre-dates the adoption of the constitutional right to organize for the purpose of collective bargaining. Consequently, where the constitutional right to organize as provided by law and the subsequent collective bargaining agreements incorporated existing law by implication, the Legislature's reservation of the right to amend salary periods was necessarily incorporated as well. Therefore, a statute changing the salary periods does not violate . . . the Constitutional right to organize for the purpose of collective bargaining. (Emphasis, citation, and footnote omitted). Based on a plain reading of HRS § 78-13 (1993), public employees are to be paid twice a month, which the Plaintiffs concede. However, as the Plaintiffs correctly point out, nowhere in the statute does the legislature direct that the twice-monthly payment must fall on the fifteenth day and the last day of the month. But, at the same time, HRS chapter 89, regarding collective bargaining for public employees, does not expressly indicate that the specific pay days must be negotiated through collective bargaining. As previously noted, implicit within article XIII, section 2 is the right to collectively bargain over wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment. See HRS § 89-2 and HRS § 89-3. Nevertheless, the Plaintiffs have failed to demonstrate that bargaining over pay dates is one of the core subjects of collective bargaining that triggers a violation of article XIII, section 2. The Plaintiffs have also failed to provide this court with their collective bargaining agreement to support their contention that pay dates are bargainable and, in fact, admit that pay dates [were] not specifically incorporated into the contract. Accordingly, we reject the Plaintiffs' contention that, because pay dates have never been specified in any statute, the Act 355 amendment to unilaterally alter the traditional practice of being paid on the fifteenth day and the last day of the month violates their right to collectively bargain pay periods.