Kokua Line
Kokua Line
Question: On Nov. 24, Hawaii Teamsters Local 996 picketed Times Super Market at the Kamehameha Highway entrance to Kaneohe Shopping Center. They would not yield to any car wishing to enter, which potentially caused a traffic hazard on the highway. Does the Honolulu Police Department have any authority to move a picket line? If the pickets were in front of Times, it would have prevented the traffic hazard and not affected other businesses in the center. If police do not have that authority, then the union should compensate other businesses for the loss of business. Picket line slows
traffic in KaneoheAnswer: Those familiar with the meat cutters' strike against Times over the Thanksgiving holiday agree that the situation in Kaneohe was particularly bad, describing it variously as "the nastiest" and "the most dramatic."
Police monitoring strikers are there to make sure they comply with picketing laws. "Beyond that, they are not able to tell the picketers where they can picket," said HPD spokeswoman Michelle Yu, citing HRS Chapter 377-7 ("Unfair labor practices of employees") and Chapter 708-814 ("Criminal trespass in the second degree").
An employee is not "to hinder or prevent, by mass picketing, threats, intimidation, force or coercion of any kind, the pursuit of any lawful work or employment, or to obstruct or interfere with entrance to or egress from any place of employment or to obstruct or interfere with free and uninterrupted use of public roads, streets, highways, railways, airports or other ways of travel or conveyance."
Picketing, or any other activity or conduct regulated by the National Labor Relations Act, is exempt from the petty misdemeanor charge of second-degree criminal trespass.
Yu said Kaneohe police "did receive some complaints and supervisors did look at the situation," but the pickets were in compliance with the law.
However, Beth Tom, president of Price Busters, said customers and employees were harassed by picketers. Because people were able to get to Times via a back entrance, the main-entrance picketing ended up hurting her store and three other KSC businesses more than Times, she said. She estimates her business dropped 30 percent.
Still, although the situation got "out of control" and one officer "went ballistic," Tom said police, overall, "did the best they possibly could do."
Hank Leandro of Leandro Corp., which manages KSC, said he asked picketers to move off center property at the request of Times security officials. Realizing other businesses would be adversely affected, Leandro said he didn't want to do that. But, faced with the possibility that "things might get out of hand," he said he complied.
Times spokesman David Higashiyama said Times was following "standard procedure" in asking that pickets move away to a public sidewalk.
The problem was that picketers in front of the store were literally within arm's reach of customers, posing a threatening situation, he said. "Our first thought is for our customers," he said.
Local 996 business representative Peter Sturges said the primary picket site is in front of a business. But if asked to move off private property, pickets have to comply, he said.
"If we function within the parameters of the law, we have the right to put up a legal picket line," Sturges said. In that case, "we wouldn't incur any liability."
The union does "apologize to the public for any inconvenience caused during the legal picketing," said Local 996 president Mel Kahele.
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