Thousands of HGEA members entitled to COVID pay
Gov. Josh Green and the state Legislature will have to figure out how to pay for an estimated $120 million to $150 million in retroactive hazard pay due to 7,800 unionized public workers who faced health risks at Hawaii public schools during the COVID-19 pandemic.
An arbitrator’s ruling on behalf of members of the Hawaii Government Employees Association — the state’s largest union — followed a previous arbitration against Maui County in 2022 that has been settled.
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Now the state also faces similar arbitration on behalf of blue- and white-collar supervisors and non-supervisors who worked on Kauai and Hawaii island during the pandemic, said Malulani Moreno, HGEA’s communications manager.
An arbitrator ruled in January that the 7,800 school workers are entitled to additional hazard pay of 15% to 25% that’s included in their contracts, “and pointed to the higher number,” Moreno said.
Exactly how much individual HGEA members will receive in so-called Temporary Hazard Pay remains the subject of ongoing negotiations.
In a statement to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Wednesday, state budget and finance Director Luis Salaveria said, “While temporary hazard pay negotiations are ongoing, we continue to have conversations with affected public sector unions and are hopeful to reach a fair resolution as soon as possible. We remain committed to the priorities of the governor’s administration, our obligations to our workforce, and the various needs of our state, while ensuring fiscal responsibility through a balanced budget.”
In the first phase of the arbitration, HGEA argued that its members — including cafeteria managers, nurses, health aides, educational assistants and other support staff — faced health hazards by working at public schools throughout the pandemic.
In the second phase, “we needed to make the case of who was exposed and to what degree — and to what degree they are entitled to hazard pay because of the clauses in their contract,” Moreno said.
Whether each employee receives 15% of hazard pay or up to 25% depends on a variety of factors, including whether they worked mostly at home or at school, or took vacation time.
“Most of the teachers were teaching online, but these people continued to report to work and were still on-site,” Moreno said.
