Aston rehires only More than 170 workers at the Hawaiian Waikiki Beach Hotel will lose their jobs when Aston Hotels & Resorts takes over the management of the 715-room hotel Sunday.
20 from Hawaiian
Waikiki Beach
Court decision on severance
payments is still pendingBy Russ Lynch
rlynch@starbulletin.comBut Kelvin Bloom, Aston's chief operating officer, said today that Aston will be hiring significant numbers of people as a planned $30 million renovation of the hotel is finished.
For now, it needs only about 100 employees, he said, because some of the hotel will be closed and business will be slow during the renovations, which are scheduled to end by July 2002.
"The property will remain open but parts of the hotel will be undergoing renovations over the course of the next 10 months or so," Bloom said. Eventually the restaurant will be closed for a time and the rooms will closed and reopened in phases, he said.
Bloom declined to say how many of the hotel's existing staff, who were represented by the International Longshore & Warehouse Union, will remain. Union sources said only about 20 of the hotel's more than 270 employees were hired.
All were told in April their jobs would be terminated when Aston took over, after a change of ownership. They had a chance to apply in a recent job fair and Aston said it hired the people it wanted.
"We had an overwhelming turnout, just a great response," with some 1,100 candidates showing up to make applications, Bloom said.
Meanwhile, the ILWU is still awaiting a court decision on whether its members are entitled to pay for severance and unused vacations, which the union said amounts to more than $1 million. Circuit Judge Karen Blondin has yet to rule on the issue.