Hawaii stores Hawaii consumers, afraid of being caught with their pants down, cleaned out toilet paper and rice from store shelves the last time West Coast dockworkers threatened to strike.
bulk up in case
of West Coast
port strike
Docks keep moving smoothly
By Dave Segal
dsegal@starbulletin.comThree years later, history may repeat itself.
Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, already has been taking steps in Hawaii to guard against a work slowdown or a strike. On Oahu, both the Mililani and Waipahu stores have been stocking up on consumable items even though customers have yet to hit the panic button.
"We're preparing for the worst," said Debbie Shima, assistant manager of Wal-Mart's Mililani store. "We've been building up slowly for the past few months. We have foreseen some of (the possible shipping disruptions) and haven taken measures to offset this if it does happen."
Shima said both stores have been stocking up on consumable items, such as toilet paper and paper towels, and have in excess of four weeks in inventory.
With the memories of three years ago still etched in her mind, Shima said that Wal-Mart wasn't willing to take any chances.
"Toward the end (in 1999) things were getting pretty nuts," she said. "People were buying not only our top-selling items but everything, especially the rice and the toilet paper."
Management at Daiei stores in Waipahu and Pearl City said sales have been affected by the threat of a union strike.
Store manager Ed Sawai of Daiei in Waipahu said he has observed a 30 percent to 50 percent increase in rice and toilet paper sales.
"It seems like those customers are buying an extra bag or two than what they normally do," Sawai said.
Though there has been a noticeable rise in sales, Sawai said a full-blown scare has yet to come.
"It's not like we have a mob out here. People are shopping leisurely. I don't think the urgency is there yet," he added. "People are taking precautions already."
Manager Brian Wall at Wal-Mart in Mililani said he did not see a jump in toilet paper and rice sales yesterday. However, toilet paper and rice sales at the store are up somewhat overall.
Brian Christensen, president of the Hawaii division of retail food distributor Fleming Cos., said his company would be able to withstand a brief stoppage.
"Anything to do with the docks has an effect on the state of Hawaii and people like us," Christensen said. "But we have a facility here that can buy us time, basically. We can stock up more, yet we're still limited on space. I think we have enough inventories here to last us a few weeks, but not a sustained period."
A strike could begin anytime, but rumors of a slowdown yesterday never materialized despite the collapse of labor contract negotiations during the holiday weekend.
"There were some concerns about that possibly happening but our productivity levels were normal today," said John Kelley, spokesman for Alexander & Baldwin Inc., parent company of ocean transportation subsidiary Matson Navigation Co.
State economist Pearl Imada Iboshi, while noting it would be too hard to measure the specific effect of a slowdown or strike, said Hawaii imports $10 billion worth of products every year. She said food represents a little more than $1 billion of that total, with Hawaii residents consuming about 65 percent of their food from those imports.
"It would be a very significant impact if (a stoppage) is long-lasting," she said. "Given the fact that we are just recovering from the 9/11 impact in terms of job growth and other economic indicators, it would be very unfortunate for it to happen at this point in time."
Leroy Laney, an economics professor at Hawaii Pacific University, said that a weeklong slowdown or strike would equate to a longer disruption to Hawaii because of the bottleneck that would result.
"The longer it lasts, the more detrimental to the local economy," he said. "I think a lot of people have enough inventory to hold them for a brief period of time, but as times goes on, they run through that inventory and prices start to rise."
Staff writer Rosemarie Bernardo contributed to this story.
