Editorials
Monday, September 2, 1996
Labor Day important
in unionized Hawaii
LABOR Day began in September 1882 with a parade in New York City. In 1887, Oregon became the first state to make Labor Day a legal holiday. In 1894, President Grover Cleveland signed a bill making Labor Day a national holiday. Labor Day is always a significant holiday in Hawaii because the unions are so powerful in the islands today and they have played a major role in the development of the 50th state.
The political clout of the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union in the post-World War II decades has faded with the decline of the sugar and pineapple industries. Today it's the public employee unions - the Hawaii Government Employees Association, United Public Workers, Hawaii State Teachers Association, University of Hawaii Professional Assembly, the police and firefighters unions - that call many of the political shots. The ILWU, the Hotel Workers Union and the Teamsters are important in the visitor industry and to a lesser extent in the political arena, as are the building trades.
This past year saw the first contested election in the 40-year history of the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO). Last October John Sweeney, president of the Service Employees International Union, was elected president of the 13-million-member federation, succeeding Lane Kirkland. He defeated Thomas Donahue, the interim AFL-CIO president and former secretary-treasurer.
The election of a Republican Congress in 1994 was a major blow to organized labor, which has also seen its numbers as a proportion of the national labor force decline sharply in recent decades, from 34 percent in 1954 down to 15 percent in 1995. The new AFL-CIO president is determined to correct those problems.
That's not the situation here. Organized labor in Hawaii is still a force to be reckoned with in politics; its long-standing alliance with the Democrats continues despite the election of a Democratic governor who has defied them by ordering layoffs.
Organized labor has won valuable benefits for working people in Hawaii. But the rest of the community, which is not part of this behemoth, sometimes feels left out, even victimized, by labor's dominance. That feeling may be reflected in growing discontent with the Legislature, most of which has labor's blessing.
Philippine agreement
A potentially historic agreement to bring peace to the southern Philippines has been reached in negotiations in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta. But whether it will bring real peace is highly uncertain.
Conclusion of the agreement after many years of on-off negotiations is an achievement for President Fidel Ramos - but that will be negated if the accord collapses. And it is much too soon to make a judgment on that.
Inmates in Texas
SENDING 300 Hawaii prison inmates to facilities in Texas last December was a useful expedient to relieve overcrowding. But Hawaii authorities haven't forgotten about the inmates they sent away. This was made clear when Department of Public Safety officials questioned strip searches allegedly conducted of inmates, including several from Hawaii, at the Dickens County Detention Center in view of the public and female corrections officers.
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John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher
David Shapiro, Managing Editor
Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor
Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors
A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor