The ILWU will hold meetings to provide information to pensioners and active members about the new Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit that begins enrollment on November 15 of this year. All Medicare beneficiaries are eligible for Medicare Part D.

How do you enroll? What kinds of plans are being offered? What if you already have a drug plan?
These questions and more will be answered at the meetings.

Safety on the job is a big concern to every worker. A workplace can be full of hazards. Slippery floors, sharp objects, moving machinery, dangerous chemicals, heavy lifting, or contaminated air are just a few examples of workplace dangers.

You then look for patterns. A worker may think difficulty breathing or a skin rash are due to their personal health condition. A body mapping exercise may show that several workers in a particular department have the same difficulty breathing or workers who use a particular cleanser have the same skin rash. Such patterns of similar injuries usually point to a workplace hazard that needs to be eliminated.

As a rank-and-file union, it is ILWU members who set the programs and policies of the union. They do this by sending their representatives to a special meeting—called a Convention—which is held every three years. The last Convention of ILWU Local 142 was held from September 15-19, 2003 in Honolulu. The next Convention will be held in September 2006.

KAILUA—Luana Hills Golf and Country Club is a stunning combination of lush rolling hills, 100 foot tall trees and dense tropical rain forest. The course layout is done in the “links” style, with undulating greens and tight fairways. According to its website, Luana Hills Golf and Country Club is “spectacular and somewhat difficult, yet beautiful.”

The new Medicare prescription drug benefit (also known as Medicare Part D) will start up on January 1, 2006. That's just six months away, but most Medicare beneficiaries know very little about the benefit or how to get it.

The law defines reciprocal beneficiaries as two adults who are legally prohibited from marrying under state law.

This broad definition encompasses not only same-sex domestic partners but adult brothers and sisters, a widowed parent and a grown child, aunts and nephews, etc.

Those persons entering into a reciprocal beneficiary relationship must register their relationship as reciprocal beneficiaries with the Department of Health.

The Hawaii Family Leave Act and the US Family and Medical Leave Act allow covered workers to take leave to care for a family member with a “serious health condition.” Under the federal law, a “family member” is defined as spouse, children, and biological parents.

ILWU Oahu members and retirees joined other unions and supporters of a mass transit system for Honolulu at a rally at City Hall on July 7, 2005. Much of the rally was directed at Governor Lingle who had threatened to veto a bill passed by the legislature that would fund the mass transit system.

SAN FRANCISCO—The ILWU’s International Executive Board, the union’s highest governing body between International Conventions, met in San Francisco March 30-April 1, 2005.