On behalf of Local 142, I want to express my deepest gratitude to the workers in the sugar industry who helped make the union strong. With the closure of HC&S, we saw the end of an entire industry that created so much of life as we know it here in Hawaii. Sugar is pau. However, the values we treasure as a union and as a community will live on.
We are in a time of dramatic change as a nation and state. In order to ground ourselves moving forward, we need to remember our foundation. The ILWU played a crucial role in uniting the different ethnic groups in the sugar plantations. The Big Five—the five companies that monopolized Hawaii’s politics and economy—used a divide-andconquer strategy, and kept all the races separate. Unionizing industries like sugar and pineapple through the ILWU brought the different ethnicities together. Sugar bolstered our economy, and along the way the workers banded together across racial lines to fight for fair treatment and wages through the union’s structure and principles. The union brought about great social progress in Hawaii and fostered the values we continue to prioritize today: cooperation, trust, and mutual respect.
It was only natural that so many of our union forefathers were from the sugar industry. Let us remember some of these leaders of our union: past Local Presidents like Eddie Lapa, Eusebio “Bo” Lapenia,
Fred Galdones, and Isaac Fiesta. Past Division Directors were also from sugar. We are so blessed to have had guidance from the very people who experienced the value of the union in their own sugar companies and wanted to give back.
To the workers of HC&S, it is my hope that as you move on to other industries, you will remember the union principles that helped make our sugar workers some of the highest paid sugar workers in the world. Everything worth having takes work. I want to commend HC&S members for their union solidarity and negotiating for what they deserved until the very end. It took so much discipline and guts to negotiate with the company in the midst of all the chaos the closure brought.
Tourism is now the economic engine of Hawaii. Most people come here to experience paradise. But what really makes Hawaii paradise is the values of its people. ILWU members, I am proud to say, are people who are unafraid to take stands on how others should be treated, what benefits they’re entitled to, and their right to make a better future for their family.
The experience many members gained from HC&S’s closure centered around perseverance and sticking together for a common goal. The power of these lessons will endure through the choices you make and the way you continue to stand for what is right no matter what. Thank you for shining your example and being the light we navigate by.
Endless thanks to you and aloha.
One of the last times the smoke billows from the mill.
“The generations here made HC&S such a unique place to work. We were family immediately because our families before us worked here,” said Teven Cordero, a fourth generation HC&S worker. L-r: Michael Miller, third generation HC&S worker Ray Mauad, and Cordero.
L-r: David Gamurot, Calisto Palos, Lloyd Taguchi, Steven Onaga, and Amado Nacapuy. “If the mill got off track for whatever reason, every minute it’s down they lose a thousand dollars. We lived close to the mill in case of emergencies like that. Everybody was so tight, everybody would help each other,” said Palos .