As a member of ILWU Local 142, you are part of a long and proud tradition where workers join or form organizations for their mutual benefit and to promote fairness and justice on the job. These organizations are called labor unions, trade unions, or just unions.

Believe it or not, most workers organize into unions because of bad working conditions and poor treatment by management and not for higher wages and benefits. When workers are organized into unions, they gain the power to change their working conditions and demand respect and fair treatment from management.

January 2, Jack Wayne Hall Day, is a paid holiday under many ILWU contracts to honor the former Hawaii Regional Director and later ILWU International Vice President who died on Jan. 2, 1971. Other ILWU contracts recognize Feb.28, Hall’s birthday, as a paid holiday. Hall, born in 1915, was 55 years old when he died.

Your union contract is a written agreement with your employer. It defines your wages, benefits, conditions of employment, and rights on the job. It is enforceable through a grievance procedure and ultimately in a court of law.

Most union contracts are renegotiated every three years, although some contracts run for only one year and others run for as long as six years. How long the contract runs is up to you and your negotiating committee. The ILWU is a democratic union and members are involved in every step of the negotiation process.

A single worker is powerless to bargain with his employer for good wages and conditions. In the same way, a single voter can’t do much to influence the legislature.

Workers join unions so they can bargain as an organized group, and this pays off in better wages, working conditions, and job security. Likewise, unionized workers can organize their votes, which gives them the power to get laws passed that benefit workers and their families.

Hawaii will be celebrating the 100 year anniversary since December 20, 1906, when the first group of 15 men from the Philippines arrived in Honolulu aboard the S.S. Doric. They were dispatched the following day to work for the Ola’a Plantation on the Big Island, a new and very large plantation that needed all the laborers it could get.