Many deserve credit for minimum-wage increase
While House Speaker Scott Saiki and his leadership faction will claim the credit, this group has actually been the greatest impediment to increasing the minimum wage and denying workers a pay increase over the past four years.
Working families need help, not gamesmanship
There is no good reason for the House and Senate to be at loggerheads over the minimum wage and the Earned Income Tax Credit bills.
Don’t let House gut the minimum wage bill
Working families and our economy have been suffering for decades with wages that fail to come close to a livable standard. Fortunately both chambers are finally acting like this deficit needs to be closed. We need them to stand by their promises to workers and our economy, and finally push this bill over the finish line and on to the governor’s desk.
Hawaiʻi Democrats must raise minimum wage
All Hawaiʻi workers should be able to make ends meet with one job, and it’s our legislature’s responsibility to make that a reality.
Hawaiʻi House leaders shelve bills that would help workers
House leaders are resisting union pressure to revive bills this year that would raise the minimum wage and exempt jobless benefits from state income taxes.
House leaders ignored the needs of Hawaiʻi’s workers
They killed bills to raise the state minimum wage and to help the unemployed.
Labor leaders urge lawmakers to move minimum wage increase
Teamsters, ILWU and Local 5 leaders ask House Speaker Scott Saiki to schedule a floor vote by Wednesday.
State, city hoodwink the poor, rest of us
“Sickening, just sickening,” writes Joel Fischer, Waiʻalae resident.
House leadership bails out businesses but bails on worker relief
Unemployment insurance benefits should be exempt from Hawaiʻi income tax, but a Senate bill calling for that has unfortunately stalled.
Raising minimum wage is imperative
Raising the minimum wage to a living wage has been a top priority for the Democratic Party of Hawaiʻi for years.
Two pay raises for lawmakers over the next year are raising eyebrows
The salary commission approved the wage hikes two years ago but critics now question the optics of government officials getting pay raises during an economic crisis.
Hypocrisy in Hawaiʻi’s House of Representatives
How can legislators justify giving themselves a raise when they refuse to hold hearings on increasing the minimum wage?
Minimum wage increase needed
Hawaiʻi’s chronically low wages are a disaster bigger then Hurricane ʻIniki or the 2018 Puna lava flow, writes one Hawaiʻi Island resident.
Speaker Saiki must stand with workers
For three straight legislative sessions, 2018–20, Saiki and the Hawaiʻi State House of Representatives have betrayed the Democratic Party’s commitment to a $15+ minimum wage.
Legislature could quickly raise minimum wage next year
A bill that stalled in the last days of the 2019 session carries over to the assembly that convenes in January, giving state lawmakers an opportunity to secure minimum wage legislation early in the 2020 session.
Fight for $15: Lawmakers fail our ʻohana on wages
How much harder for those working minimum-wage jobs in Hawaiʻi, who had every right to expect their elected leaders to address their needs?
Why is every legislative session shrouded in political mystery?
The much ballyhooed effort to raise the minimum wage was just one bill that died with no vote or announcement. Lawmakers didn’t want you to even ask, much less know.
Saiki, House leave local workers worse off
Saiki could have written two lines that synthesized his entire commentary: “The Chamber of Commerce, which funds my campaign, didn’t want me to pass a living minimum wage for the people of Hawaiʻi. So I didn’t.”
‘Republicrats’ failed workers by not raising minimum wage
The leadership of the House of Representatives let our workers down: they include Scott Saiki, Mark Nakashima, Della Au Belatti, Dee Morikawa, Tom Brower, Aaron Johanson and Sylvia Luke.
Out of touch lawmakers failed to raise minimum wage
An increase would have shown that Democrats still fight for the interests of working families.