DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM Local 5 members gathered yesterday at their Kapiolani Boulevard strike headquarters to prepare for a possible strike. Flores Salud, left, and Domie Molina showed the signs they were printing.

5 Waikiki hotels
face strike threat

Local 5 members prepare for
a walkout at Hilton and Sheraton

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By Diana Leone
dleone@starbulletin.com

There is a 90 to 100 percent chance of a strike this week at Waikiki's Hilton and Sheraton hotels because "I can't sign what they're giving me," the leader of the hotel and restaurant workers union Local 5 said yesterday.

As the union opened its strike headquarters and continued printing picket signs on Labor Day, Eric Gill, financial secretary-treasurer of Local 5, said he and hotel negotiators are "far apart on issues of economics and subcontracting."

Gill said informal meetings Friday and Saturday created little movement, and he is not optimistic about the outcome of formal negotiations scheduled for today and tomorrow.

A strike could involve 4,000 housekeepers, cooks, waitresses, waiters, dishwashers, bartenders and others who work at the Hilton Hawaiian Village and four Sheraton properties -- the Royal Hawaiian, Moana Surfrider, Princess Kaiulani and Sheraton-Waikiki.

The union claims that Hawaii hotels have the second-highest revenue per available room and occupancy rates in the country, behind only New York City. In short, that Hawaii hotels are making money, even after Sept. 11, and are not giving their employees a fair share of it, Gill said.

Union officials say hotels in other cities have ratified contracts with higher increases for employees since the terrorist attacks that many blame for a tourism slowdown.

In addition to pay, pension plans and health insurance for a proposed four-year contract, a key issue is the hotels' desire to expand their ability to subcontract, Gill said. Local 5 wants to negotiate better pay and benefits for workers who are currently subcontracted and allow no more subcontracting.

Robert Katz, the attorney negotiating for all five hotels, could not be reached for comment yesterday.

DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM Children of Local 5 members -- from left, Veronica Robertson, Kahea Tan and Kela Tan -- helped make signs yesterday. A strike could take place this week at Waikiki's Sheraton and Hilton hotels.

At a rented strike-preparation headquarters on Kapiolani Boulevard, 40 or more union members worked several hours yesterday afternoon to create silk-screened signs that proclaimed in bright red ink, "Sheraton Unfair -- Local 5."

Already on hand from earlier printing efforts are signs that read, "Hilton Unfair -- Local 5," "Dollars not dimes -- Whatever it takes" and "We won't go back to plantation days."

Many workers sported T-shirts with a drawing of a plantation-era luna, or boss, on his horse and a red "X" over it.

Some workers said a strike could come as soon as tomorrow.

Unionized hotel workers voted 2,045-501 on Aug. 13 to authorize a strike against Hilton and Sheraton hotels.

Strike preparations include workers signing up for picket duty and the union gathering food from churches for striking workers, Gill said.

Trinie Bernades, who retired in February after 32 years as a Hilton housekeeper, said she will support her former co-workers on the strike lines.

She said some Hilton housekeepers skip lunch to clean 16 rooms per shift because they are afraid they will be penalized if they cannot do them all.

Flores Salud, who has worked 31 years as a bellman at the Sheraton-Waikiki, said he was "suspended until further investigation" for handing out a Local 5 pamphlet about the potential strike to one hotel customer before he began work on Friday.

"Labor law says we have a right to do this," Gill said of the incident, saying he expects the Hawaii Labor Relations Board to restore to Salud and others any wages lost because of allowable union activity.

Gill said the union expects the outcome of negotiations with the Hilton and Sheraton, the two largest hotels in Waikiki, to affect future talks with the Ilikai, Ala Moana and Hyatt hotels.

In mid-August the union was proposing a $2 wage increase for nontipped workers and an 85-cent increase for tipped workers in increments over the next three years. The hotels were offering a $1.05 increase for nontipped workers and a 30-cent increase for tipped workers.

According to Local 5 yesterday, the hotels want new hires to pay 20 percent of their medical insurance premium and want a broader ability to subcontract workers, rather than hiring them permanently.