Lifeguards want ‘same respect in pay’

LIHU‘E — Due to the role they play in ensuring public safety, lifeguards, police and firefighters escaped a two-day per month furlough plan that has impacted the vast majority of county workers since July 1.

But water safety officers are wondering why they were still singled out for wage reductions while the others received more money.

“We’re working in the fire department together, as brothers and sisters, we’re risking our lives just like they’re doing, and it seems like we got a pay cut to pay for their raise,” said Ocean Safety Bureau Supervisor Kalani Vierra, adding that the firefighters deserved the pay raise.

When Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr. in March unveiled his operating budget for Fiscal Year 2011, lifeguards were scheduled to go through a two-day per month furlough. But after public outcry and Kaua‘i County Council pressure, they ended up being spared from the furloughs.

“All of sudden, out of nowhere, behind some closed doors, it was decided, ‘OK, guys, you’re not getting a furlough, but you’re getting a pay cut,’” Kaua‘i Lifeguard Association President Dr. Monty Downs said Wednesday at the council meeting in Nawiliwili.

Downs, an emergency room doctor who also chairs the Water Safety Task Force, has been one of the lifeguards’ strongest supporters in the last 20 years, Vierra said.

Police officers received a 6 percent pay raise this year, and firefighters took a 4 percent pay increase. Downs said the lifeguards were also supposed to get a 4 percent raise this year, which had been bargained a couple years ago with their union, the Hawai‘i Government Employees Association.

Vierra said right before the final version of the FY11 budget was approved, the lifeguards were called to a union meeting and asked to vote in favor of a furlough or a pay cut.

“So we all voted we wanted a pay cut, because if you do a furlough you get a 10 percent (cut) instead of a 5 percent,” Vierra said.

Finance Director Wally Rezentes Jr. said the union gave each county the discretion to furlough their employees up to two days or cut their salaries 5 percent

The Big Island lifeguards received the same pay cut that Kaua‘i lifeguards did. But Maui and Honolulu counties had a different version. On Maui the lifeguards, just like the rest of county employees there, went through a one-day per month furlough. In Honolulu the lifeguards did not go through a furlough and their salaries remained intact.

Councilman Tim Bynum said he didn’t know the counties acted differently. Up until 10 days ago, he said he also didn’t know the lifeguards here received a 5 percent pay cut.

Council Chair Jay Furfaro said council members did not negotiate the package reducing the lifeguards’ pay scale. Instead, they tried to exempt public safety workers, he said.

“I do want to point out that the administration found themselves dealing with a third party, and that third party wasn’t this council, in coming in to what they felt was continuity on those pay reductions,” he said.

Downs said he wasn’t asking for “sympathy for them … but I do ask you for respect on the basis of what they do.”

In the last year, according to Downs, lifeguards performed 248 rescues and more than 120,000 preventions, accomplished in large part by telling people where they can swim safely.

Bargaining union

Vierra said the lifeguards weren’t “too happy” with what they got, especially because the Honolulu lifeguards received different treatment despite being in the same bargaining union.

“We risk our lives just as much as the guys in Honolulu, and they didn’t get a pay cut,” Vierra said. “We’re kinda bummed about that, but at least we’re still working.”

Vierra’s frustration stems from a union he believes does not treat the lifeguards fairly.

“We’re getting a different treatment from the rest of the state. One guy getting furlough, one guy getting pay cut, one guy nothing,” Vierra said.

In the 1970s there were very few lifeguards in the state, so they were put together in the same bargaining union as clerks, according to Downs.

“The job description is very different, and it’s a very inappropriate bargaining union to be in,” he said.

The lifeguards have little support from their union, Downs said, but to change that would take a “huge undertaking” in the state Legislature requiring years of lobbying.

“It’s just the union we’re in. That’s our problem,” Vierra said.

Furlough end in sight

On Wednesday the council passed a bill on its first reading intended to end the furloughs effective Jan. 1.

Furfaro said he believes the $2.3 million in the bill that would be appropriated from the surplus is intended to end the furloughs and the pay cuts.

Rezentes confirmed the bill is intended to end the “waivers,” as the administration calls the pay cuts.

Downs asked the council to give the lifeguards retroactive pay, all the way from July 1, 2010.

Rezentes said the bill probably won’t provide back pay for county employees that received the waivers.

The council unanimously approved the bill on first reading. It will now go through public hearing and the Committee of the Whole on Jan. 12.

‘Not about the money’

“We still do our job. It’s not about the money,” Vierra said. “It’s about the lifestyle of being around the ocean and helping people. That’s pretty much why we all wanted to be lifeguards. We know we wasn’t going to be rich.”

Vierra said Hawai‘i lifeguards go though an agility test that has the highest standards in the nation.

“Every year, if you don’t pass your agility test, you cannot keep your job,” he said, explaining that the ocean conditions in Hawai‘i are much more dangerous than on the Mainland.

The pay scale, however, is “much smaller” than in California, Vierra said.

He said he hopes lifeguards in the future can be treated like the firefighters and the policemen.

“I do believe we risk our lives just like they do. We’re hoping that we get the same respect in pay,” he said.

• Léo Azambuja, staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 252) or lazambuja@kauaipubco.com.