Being a member of the ILWU runs in the family for thousands of people in Hawaii. The ILWU Local 142 has 22,000 members and close to 5,000 of these members live in a household where two or more members have the same last name. The record for the most members in the same family goes to a household on Maui where seven members have the same last name—we do make an assumption that these people are related as family.

This does not count the hundreds or maybe thousands of members who are related as family but have different last names or live at a different address. 

One disadvantage of having so many members in the same household is that they receive multiple copies of the VOICE of the ILWU. “Stop sending us so many copies of the newspaper,” has been a common complaint from these households. Unfortunately, this was a very difficult problem to solve with the old computer program used to maintain member addresses. It was actually cheaper to continue to send multiple copies then to expend the time and effort to eliminate theduplicate mailings.

Share your VOICE
Now, thanks to the increased power and versatility of personal computers, we developed a program that automatically combines addresses and last names and sends only one copy of the VOICE to that household. This includes active and
retired members. In households with 2 members, the VOICE will be addressed to both members—for example, John & Mary Vila. Inhouseholds with 3 or more members, the VOICE will be addressed to the family—for example, Vila Family. This should eliminate most of the duplicate mailings, but don’t forget to share this copy of the VOICE with the other members of your family!

However, the program will not eliminate multiple mailings if the last names are different, such as for in-laws and other relatives with different last names. About 1,500 members share the same addresses but have different last names. You can help us reduce these multiple mailings by returning the Duplicate VOICE Correction Form.

For some issues of the VOICE of the ILWU, individual copies must be sent to each member because of legal requirements. These issues contain legal notices, and the law requires us to send these notices to each member. The year 2003 is an election year for ILWU officers, so don’t be surprised if your household receives multiple copies of the VOICE addressed to each member. These issues contain Notice of Elections, Notice of Balloting, and other important information. 

Send us corrections
Please fill out the Duplicate VOICE Correction Form on the left, if you want to combine VOICE mailings or have individual copies of the VOICE sent to particular members. Please clip and use this original form, as the back contains your address which we will need to locate your record. You can give this form to your unit officers, drop the form off at your Division Office, or mail this form to: Attention: Mailroom, ILWU Local 142, 451 Atkinson Drive, Honolulu, Hawaii 96814.