The Hawaii Department of Labor and Industrial Relations (DLIR) has a number of resources it can share with employers to provide assistance to help businesses in Hawaii. This is the first of a series of articles to provide you with information about these resources and technical assistance services which are available at no cost to you.

We all recall the horror and shock as we watched live television broadcast the events which unfolded around the John Miranda hostage taking incident in Honolulu. We also see in the news daily across our country increased workplace violence. A recent publication of the DLIR's Division of Hawaii Occupational Safety and Health(HIOSH), Violence in the Workplace Handout, addresses this growing problem for employers in Hawaii. Because of its seriousness, DLIR's HIOSH has made workplace violence training and cooperative consultation partnerships with employers a priority.

Consider some facts about violence at work that easily destroys people's lives and business viability:

* 950 workers' compensation cases resulted from violence in Hawaii in 1994;

* Serious violent workplace incidents cost $250,000 per occurrence;

* Homicide, after motor vehicle accidents, is the second leading cause of workplace deaths;

* Homicide is the number one leading cause of workplace deaths for women;

* One out of four workers is attacked, violently harassed or threatened at work each year;

All places of employment are at risk from workplace violence. All places of employment must have policies which address all forms of violence.

While the media often focuses on threats or incidents perpetrated by current or former employees, such occurrences account for only 10% of all workplace violence. By far, most violence comes from robberies and enraged customers or clients. All three categories, whether robbery, customer, and employee perpetrated, are controllable through management commitment and planning, hazard assessment and correction, and safety and health training.

Controlling violence depends on having a written violence prevention program, doing a worksite analysis, implementing hazard prevention and control measures, conducting training and education programs and maintaining evaluation and record keeping procedures.

HIOSH is prepared to help Hawaii's employers prevent, manage and control violence. The Consultation and Training program provides services to assist in establishing a safe work environment. Experts can help with a worksite analysis and internal hazard assessment. Such assessments include a review of administrative procedures and work practice controls as well as environmental and engineering analyses.

Call the HIOSH Consultation and Training Branch at 586-9100 for a free copy of the HIOSH Violence in the Workplace Handout and for further information and assistance. DLIR's commitment to cooperative partnerships means that employers can receive free consultation and training on any occupational safety and health issue from HIOSH (586-9100) without fear of citation.

The next big jump in our economy occurred when the U S Government became interested in the Pacific Ocean and decided they needed a Navy base in the middle of this vast expanse of water. Thus, Pearl Harbor followed by Shafter, Schofield, Hickam, K-bay,etc. This brought in soldiers with their payrolls as well as many civilian jobs to service and maintain the men and equipment of these military services. That tide lifted many boats!

When yours truly passed thru Hawaii during WWII, there were 4 hotels in Waikiki: the Royal, Moana, Niumalu and Halekulani. With the advent of the jet airplane and United Airline's desire to capture this little corner of the world, now look at the development over the last 40 years in Waikiki! Many, many boats have been lifted by bringing in dollars from outside these islands.

Our state economy burgeoned over these many years despite government and labor. We didn't have to float huge public bonds to finance this growth. It was all financed by the Private Sector! Government funds were involved in building and maintaining the infrastructure necessary to support our expanding economy. Roads, harbors, airports, schools, etc.

Over the last 10 years or so, that capital from outside our Island State has been drying up. With the demise of Sugar and Pineapple on the agricultural side of the economy and the huge reduction in our military, one must jump at whatever opportunities that are now available. Radio advertising was a big advance over newspaper advertising. Then TV allowed me to show my product in eye catching displays to lure customers to buy my product. Now the Internet allows me to take those same techniques and send them around the world in any and almost all languages of choice. Thus, I can target Latin America, China, Catholics, Moslems, sports freaks, etc. or I can target the whole world! Is the World Wide Web the perfect market place? Certainly not. Much can still be done to perfect it, but it is here and we should use it to our maximum advantage as a State and as individuals.

Our marketable products are mainly our diverse population, sun, surf, sand and climate. Does your Civic Club, your Church, your business, your interest group have anything someone outside our State would be interested in buying or attending or participating in? That's international marketing and you might have a candidate for placing on the WWW! There are a number of businesses in our State that can help you advertise your athletic tournament, your bed and breakfast, your hula hoop or your unique wares to the world on the internet. Some can even develop your internet pages in some 90 worldwide languages including Chinese, Japanese and Korean! Wasn't it Horace Greely who said "Go west, young man?" I f the State isn't capable of improving our economy; then, let's show them what small business can do! Small Business Hawaii. is on the Web Couldn't, shouldn't you be there, too?

I know I promised to answer your computer questions in this column, but I'd like to take a minute to talk about something that I feel needs a little more attention. Answers to your questions will be forthcoming in another column.

I recently spent several weeks on the mainland on business. While in the Baltimore airport, a man sat next to me and struck up a conversation about my laptop computer. He had been thinking about getting one himself, and wanted to try mine out for size. He asked me if he could run the same programs he uses on his desktop PC on a laptop. I said that he could, but that he should get new copies of any programs he used, since the copies he bought for his desktop PC were licensed for use on only one computer. He informed me that he got most of his software from his friend. After eight hours in a coach plane seat, I didn't feel like telling him about the evils of software piracy, but with my travels over I will take a few minutes to tell you.

If you use a computer in your business, you know how important it is to have easy to use, and functional software. It's software that let's you type memos and invoices, balance your books, and keep track of your customers. Software does a lot for you, and that functionality doesn't come cheap for a reason. It seems so easy to just get a copy of the latest software from your friends, After all, since the Micromonster software company makes so much money - who could it hurt?

If you wouldn't shoplift, if you wouldn't steal from your fellow SBH members, why would you pirate software? That's what you are doing when you copy software and give it to your friends, or get copies of software from your friends. It's not some faceless, big-brother corporation you are taking advantage of, it's a computer programmer or software tester that's working his or her tail off to make sure that the programs you spend so much money for have the features you want, and work the way they should.

Software applications come from many sources; large corporations like Microsoft and Borland, or small software shops that are not unlike you and I - just successful enough to keep going. They all count on people to be honest and pay for the right to use their products. By registering and paying for your software, you aren't just becoming another statistic in a database, you're helping keep people employed, and helping keep another small business going.