June 30, 2009

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Hawai`i State Republican Chairman, Jonah Ka`auwai, released the following in response to comments made by public worker union bosses at Tuesday’s rally at the Capitol:

“Unfortunately, the union bosses have been trying to sway public opinion by using the term ‘fairness’ in this furlough debate. But, the public needs to be clear that these arrogant bosses are not looking at the realities of the economic situation from the perspective of the 47,000 people that have had to deal with complete unemployment in Hawai`i.”

“Truth is, if you go down to the state unemployment office and ask the people standing in line how many of them are state public workers, you will quickly find out that the answer is none. Is that fairness? Private sector employees have been bearing the full hurt of this nationwide economic downturn while Hawai`i’s highly paid union bosses continue to collect their healthy six-figure paychecks on the backs of the hard-working union members that just want to keep their jobs.”

“If the bosses really want to talk about fairness, I challenge them to take a pay cut alongside their members during this difficult period while reducing the dues taken from their workers’ paychecks. Let’s see them put a few dollars back in the pockets of the rank and file instead of the Democrats’ campaigns. Then, we can work together to turn this economy around while the union bosses find more productive ways to spend their members’ dues instead of buying thousands of T-shirts, full-page newspaper ads, and professionally printed signs & flyers to fight the furlough plan - - a plan that still allows every state worker to keep their job and health benefits, unlike the thousands of private sector employees that have not had a choice between a temporary furlough or the unemployment line.”

For more information, please contact:
Jim Bryan, Vice Chair Communications
(808)528-1073
(808)721-5084
ScreenplayUSA [at] aol [dot] com

###