Hawaii’s visitor industry faces threat of hotel, airline strikes
Rocky Higgins, who has worked as a bartender at the Princess Kaiulani Hotel for 30 years, signed a strike benefit card and made picket signs Monday in preparation for what could be Unite Here Local 5’s largest hotel strike in decades.
Higgins is among over 5,000 workers who have authorized a strike at the Sheraton Kauai Resort and seven Waikiki hotels: the Hilton Hawaiian Village Waikiki Beach Resort; Hyatt Regency Waikiki Beach Resort &Spa; Moana Surfrider — a Westin Resort Spa; The Royal Hawaiian, a Luxury Collection Resort; Sheraton Princess Kaiulani; Sheraton Waikiki; and the Waikiki Beach Marriott Resort &Spa.
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The union has not made its strike plan clear, but has the power to call for a walkout at any time.
If the strike moves forward, it would be Local 5’s largest strike since 1990 when union workers from 11 hotels went on a 22-day strike. In 2018 some 2,700 Local 5 workers at five Marriott-managed hotels went on a 51-day strike that ended with the ratification of a contract that gave union members up to $6.13 an hour in pay and benefit increases over four years.
Higgins still remembers the challenges of the 2018 strike, but said it was worth it. He said the issues workers are fighting for this time around, like higher wages and better working conditions, are important, too, and will set “the tone for future negotiations.”
“We’re always in Hawaii struggling to make ends meet because of the economy. We’re just trying to keep up with inflation and everything else that’s going on. We are just carrying the torch as our members have done for us (before).”
Local 5’s strike preparations come as United Airlines flight attendants, who have been working under an amendable contract for nearly three years, also prepare to demonstrate nationwide and at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport on Wednesday where they will announce the results of their own strike authorization vote. If a strike is authorized, the union could call a strike anytime.
Cade Watanabe, Local 5 financial secretary-treasurer, said Monday at the union’s headquarters that he could not recall a time in recent history when there were hotel and airline strikes at the same time. Watanabe said Local 5 represents workers at Gate Gourmet, an independent provider of catering and provisioning services for airlines nationwide. A strike there was recently averted before the deadline.
Watanabe said Local 5 kicked off bargaining with Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott and Kyo-ya during a joint session on April 24, where the union outlined its major priorities, which were “wages and economics” and “workload.”
He said the union met with Kyo-ya and Marriott on July 29 and with Hilton on Aug. 1 and Hyatt on Aug. 6. But Watanabe said new bargaining dates have not been scheduled since workers took a strike vote Aug. 8.
The hotel companies did not immediately respond to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser’s request for comment.
Watanabe said the union has asked for across-the-board raises of more than $12 an hour in wages and benefits over the next four years and has proposed a process that requires hotel owners and operators to work with the union to address workload and staffing challenges.
“They haven’t even met us halfway on the economics, and there’s been no meaningful counterproposal on workload and staffing,” Watanabe said. The union still abides by its slogan, “We still believe ‘One Job Should Be Enough,’ and has added the theme ‘Respect Our Work, Respect Our Guests.’”
The United Airlines pilots strike of 1985 had a substantial and cumulative effect on Hawaii’s economy, as did the 1990 and 2018 Local 5 hotel workers strikes. The threat of these new strikes comes as Hawaii’s visitor industry continues to experience dampening from the Aug. 8, 2023, Maui wildfires, which interrupted the state’s recovery after the COVID-19 downturn.
Keith Vieira, principal of KV &Associates, Hospitality Consulting, said, “The timing coudn’t be worse for really everyone involved. The industry still hasn’t recovered from the COVID pandemic and Maui fires, and this gives people more reasons not to come. It’s not good for the state. It will affect tax revenues and put people on unemployment. It’s not good for the people that we measure the least — like the mom-and-pop business owners and the lunch wagons.”
The potential strikes have added more uncertainty as the important Labor Day travel period approaches. The Transportation Security Administration is preparing to screen a record volume of more than 17 million people nationwide from Thursday through Sept. 4. The peak travel day is projected to be Friday, when TSA expects to screen 2.86 million people.
While summer travel to Hawaii has been down in the wake of the Maui wildfires, TSA had been expecting higher volumes of travelers for Hawaii, too.
Monica Salter, a spokesperson for Outrigger Hospitality Group, said in an email: “The rumored hotel strike in Waikiki could have far-reaching consequences for Hawaii’s economy — particularly in this downturn market. The last major strike in 2018 lasted for 51 days and didn’t just impact the hotel industry, but more importantly its workers; it also rippled through the broader economy, resulting in significant financial setbacks and lost tax revenue for Honolulu.
“The ongoing disruption — ranging from the relentless noise to the considerable loss of income for workers and their families caught in the crossfire — adds to the strain on our community,” she said. “Our commitment to providing a stable and supportive environment for our hosts remains unwavering, while also ensuring that our guests continue to have a positive experience.”
The Hawai‘i Tourism Authority has invested $1.6 million, and its private industry partners have invested tens of millions more into fall marketing to help invite visitors back to Hawaii. HTA contractor Hawai‘i Visitors and Convention Bureau has planned a huge marketing saturation starting Sept. 15 in Los Angeles and culminating Sept. 22 at a Los Angeles Rams home game against the San Francisco 49ers. During the effort, Gov. Josh Green and Maui Mayor Richard Bissen are expected to extend an invitation to travelers urging them to visit Hawaii.
Past Hawaii strikes have had a dampening impact on tourism arrivals or at least made the trip far less enjoyable for visitors. Local 5’s 1990 strike, according to Honolulu Advertiser newspaper clippings, was marred by high-profile confrontations between strikers and hotel security that attracted media attention on the mainland. As notoriety of that strike grew, so did the vacation cancellations.
The advent of social media and union members working across states has raised the stakes. Local 5 is an affiliate of Unite Here, an international union that now represents over 250,000 workers throughout the U.S. and Canada.
The 2018 Local 5 Hawaii hotel workers strike was part of a nationwide strike involving over 7,000 Marriott workers from 23 hotels in eight cities. If this latest strike moves forward, it also will have a national component.
Local 5 workers in Hawaii are among the thousands of workers nationwide who have authorized strikes at Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott and Omni properties in 11 cities including Baltimore; Boston; Honolulu; Greenwich and New Haven, Conn.; Oakland, Calif; Providence, R.I.; San Diego, San Francisco and San Jose, Calif.; and Seattle.
In 2023, Unite Here members won record contracts after messy rolling strikes at Los Angeles hotels and a 47-day strike at Detroit casinos.
Local 5 workers at the Ilikai Hotel went on a one-day strike March 8, which also happened to be International Women’s Day, before the union and hotel company reached a strike-ending agreement on the first new contract in more than five years.
Green marched with some 1,500 Local 5 workers on May 1 when they rallied in Waikiki to kick-start the latest round of bargaining. Watanabe said Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi, Honolulu City Council Chair Tommy Waters and many other community members also have offered support.
U.S. Rep. Jill Tokuda helped workers make picket signs Monday.
Tokuda said her father was a Local 5 member and that she was a member of Local 5 while she worked a second job as a cocktail waitress at the Sheraton Waikiki’s former Esprit Lounge and pool bar after college to help pay off student loans.
“This is a union that recognizes the dignity of our workers and the ability for people to work a hard day’s work and be able to support and take care of their families as well,” Tokuda said. “I wanted to make sure I was here to stand by my fellow union members to make sure that they knew that they had support from all levels of government. Let’s hope we don’t get to the strike line, but if we do, we are right there with them.”
Tokuda also expressed concern about a possible United strike.
“I absolutely respect our flight attendants and our pilots and their ability to be able to fairly negotiate and get what they need for their members,” she said.
Tokuda said she wonders whether the combined threat of a hotel strike and airline strike is “a product of COVID, and some of the labor practices that we saw come out of it that at the end of the day were unfair to workers.”
She added that the pandemic also “heightened awareness amongst workers about what is important to me and to my family. I do think it is a convergence of storms.”
