Hawai'i Employment Relations Board
Decisions


In 1945 the Territory of Hawai'i enacted its own “Hawai'i Employment Relations Act” (HERA). Sometime known as Hawaii’s “little Wagner Act”its purpose was to allow private sector workers in the Territory who were not included in the coverage of the newly enacted federal “National Labor Relations Act.”

HERA [currently Chapter 377 of the Hawai'i Revised Statutes] extends collective bargaining rights to workers who are not covered by the National Labor Relations Act or the Federal Railway Labor Act (primarily agricultural workers and employees of businesses too small to meet the NLRA coverage test). In most other respects the law is similar to the NLRA.

Originally the Hawai'i Employment Relations Board (HERB) was established to administer and enforce the law. In 1986 the legislature transfered the responsibility for HRS 377 to the same board that administers Chapter 89, the Hawaii’s Public Employment Collective Bargaining Law, and the board was then renamed the Hawai'i Labor Relations Board, HLRB.         

Though the Public Sector decisions of the old HPERB and the post 1986 decisions of HLRB governing both Chapters 89 and 377 are published and generally accessible, the pre 1986 decisions of the old HERB have only been available at the HLRB office. We thank the members and Staff of the Hawaii Labor Relations Board for allowing us to scan and digitize these decisions.