ASSOCIATED PRESS Turtle Bay Resort is locked in contract talks with Local 5, which represents the hotel's workers. Above, employees chopped vegetables last week in the hotel's kitchen.

Turtle Bay Resort
dispute plods along

Behind the manicured golf greens, miles of pristine beachfront and $60 million in renovations at the Turtle Bay Resort, the luxury hotel and its employee union are waging a messy two-year contract dispute.

The union first called for a consumer boycott of the landmark North Shore resort in 2003, claiming the hotel is stalling negotiations over the workers' contract, which was last renewed in 1999.

Turtle Bay managers say the union has repeatedly refused to submit its own plan after rejecting a proposal drafted by the resort.

The latest wrangle is over health care benefits for retirees.

Attorneys for the health and welfare fund that covers 9,000 Hawaii hotel and restaurant employees said retiree medical benefits for Turtle Bay's 320 workers would be cut on June 1 unless the resort increases its contribution.

People who are already retired will keep medical coverage, but current employees would lose their health benefits upon retirement, said Lant Johnson, an attorney for the AFL Hotel and Restaurant Workers Health and Welfare Trust Fund.

Turtle Bay, purchased in 2001 by Oaktree Capital Management, now owes the fund about $525,000, according to a letter from fund attorneys.

The resort, citing the lack of a union contract, halted increases to its fund payments in 1999. The resort has since fallen behind every other Hawaii hotel feeding the fund, including those owned by Sheraton and Hilton.

In effect, the other hotels are subsidizing health care coverage for Turtle Bay's employees, Johnson said.

The resort has said it wants a contract in place before it raises payment rates and has no plans to cut health care benefits for current staff or future retirees. Turtle Bay's general manager, Abid Butt, said the resort has in fact offered employees a health care plan superior to the AFL fund's plan.

Butt represents Oaktree as well as Benchmark Management Co., operator of the 443-room resort, which attracts wealthy tourists from around the world and hosts a PGA Champions tournament in January.

But Jason Ward, spokesman for Local 5 of the hotel workers union, said the alternative health program is susceptible to changes by the management company.

Ward said the union presented a 224-signature petition last month to hotel management demanding it start paying the health care fund and resume contract negotiations. Formal talks between the union and Benchmark stalled last June and have not resumed.

On Thursday, in the bowels of the 33-year-old resort's main building, hotel security guards and union representatives argued heatedly over access to employees in the kitchen and cafeteria, a confrontation that both sides said erupts on a weekly basis.

The guards also expelled an Associated Press reporter and photographer from the kitchen.

With the union and management each claiming the other is abusing access rules and dawdling on negotiations, the National Labor Relations Board plans to hold a hearing at Turtle Bay on June 7. The board has already issued a complaint against the resort.

Some hotel employees, who declined to be identified, said workers are split on the issue, with about 60 percent supporting the consumer boycott and 40 percent opposed.

Union officials say current retiree health coverage is superior to Medicare, particularly on prescription drugs.

Brenda Orr, an employee at the resort who opposes the boycott, said demands by Local 5 are unreasonable and blames the union for threatening employee health benefits. Orr circulated a petition to end the consumer boycott and gathered nearly 150 signatures.

Turtle Bay Resort is the second-largest employer on the largely rural North Shore, after Brigham Young University-Hawaii. Benchmark assumed management duties in 2001 and has spent $60 million on renovations. Butt said the resort has struggled financially for years.

"This resort has not made money for a long time because we are out on our own. The perception is that it's hard to get to," Butt said. "We have just completed the renovations, so with all the money spent, we are still trying to reposition."

It's unclear whether the boycott has had an effect on hotel business.

The union said it recognizes Turtle Bay's push for solvency and has not brought up wages in the negotiations.

But Ward called a strike "a very distinct possibility," especially since Hawaii's economy is thriving and the state's visitor numbers have recovered since Sept. 11, 2001.