Kahele says strike hurt
his support in election
A Hawaii Teamsters leader re-elected president by a 118-vote margin yesterday acknowledged he lost support because of the month-long city bus strike he led in September.
"We won the election yesterday," Mel Kahele said yesterday as he stood outside the headquarters of Local 996 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, "and today we want to put the message out that we want to reunify and not cause any more division."
Kahele, first elected president in 1996, won by 118 votes of 2,656 votes cast. About 5,800 members were eligible to vote.
Kahele said this was not his closest election. He said that in 2000 he won by 15 votes.
Kahele's opponent in this year's election was Anson "Slim" Ilae, a shuttle bus driver for Budget Rent-A-Car. Ilae initially was ruled ineligible to run because of a dispute over payment of union dues. In September, during the strike, Ilae sued the union in federal court trying to get on the ballot by alleging discrimination. The court ruled in the union's favor, but union officials said Ilae was eligible to run three days after the bus strike was settled.
"It's obvious that the strike had an impact (on the vote)," said Kahele. "But let's set that aside and move forward. We are willing to work with Slim and his guys, and if they have ideas about how to make this union better, we want to hear."
While members often criticized Kahele publicly, the union never broke ranks during the strike. In the end, members voted 948-109 to ratify a new contract.
