Union negotiating committee member Kohry Mulkey (second from left) explains contract gains to members, including the new policy allowing workers to use sick leave as personal days off.
Unit Vice Chair/Treasurer Cesar Pedrina reviews terms of the new contract with members from front desk.
Many members from the housekeeping department attended the ratification meeting held on Thursday, November 3, 2016.
HONOLULU—After a journey spanning more than ten years, workers at Unit 4526 - Pacific Beach Hotel are more “union-strong” than ever. On November 3 and 4, 2016, they voted to accept their second contract with Highgate Hotels LP (Highgate) with workers ratifying the agreement by an overwhelming majority.
In 2002, workers in every department were suffering under HTH Corporation’s management and voted to unionize. That vote began a ten-year struggle to get owner HTH Corp. to recognize the union and to bargain a contract in good faith (see timeline below).
Unit Vice Chair/Treasurer Cesar Pedrina, who works in the hotel’s purchasing department, reminisced about the workers’ struggle to organize. “Our old management wasn’t being fair about a lot of things. New guys would come in and automatically get weekends off when old-timers never got that. Seeing my coworkers in other departments go through similar things really bothered me. I just had to speak out about that issue,” he said. “It took us ten years, but we did it! We just persevered.”
Negotiations with Highgate are different
When management switched from HTH Corp. to Highgate in 2012, members won their first contract almost immediately, because Highgate negotiated in good faith with the ILWU. The first contract spans a four-year period and is scheduled to expire in February 2017. Normally negotiations would not start until next year, but the ILWU and Highgate both agreed to meet and negotiate early in order to bargain the fairest possible agreement for the workers.
Highgate has proved to be much more sympathetic to the workers’ needs and members were encouraged to meet and organize freely because of a good working relationship with management. “We plastered the hotel with signs and posters for union meetings,” said bellman Kohry Mulkey, who served on the union negotiating committee for the first time. “We met as one big family working for what we wanted. These meetings took a lot of time. I’d come in from the North Shore, Lerma (negotiating committee member Guillerma Ulep) would come in from Waialua. But we all sat and learned together and worked to represent everyone in each department.”
Job security if the hotel changes ownership
One of the most important improvements to the second contract was a section called “successor and assigns.” The contract section on successor and assigns provides language guaranteeing that if the hotel is ever sold, the new owner must take the union and maintain the contract. “That job security means so much because I’ve been here 34 years,” said Cyril Matsuoka from the Bell Department. “It’s hard to move on to somewhere else and start from the bottom again. A new owner can’t just come in from above and do whatever they want. That’s important to me.” The hotel is currently undergoing renovations and will even undergo a name change to Alohilani Resort at Waikiki Beach over the next few years; job security brings a welcome sense of relief to workers in the midst of such major changes.
The contrast in bargaining experience between HTH Corp. and Highgate highlight the advantages of dealing with a management company that is willing to work with employees and their union.
“The ILWU has a collaborative relationship with Highgate, and that’s why we have come this far over the past four years. We intend to continue working together—both to improve the property and to provide more for the rank-andfile members at the hotel,” said union negotiations spokesperson Karl Lindo. “I also want to thank the rank-and-file leadership for all of their hard work this past four years in representing our members,” Lindo said.
in their belief that organizing into the ILWU created a sturdy foundation for their future livelihoods at Pacific Beach Hotel. “I’m thrilled to see how far we came after so long,” said unit chair Kapena Kanaiaupuni. “There’s a lot of thanks to go around. It wasn’t just the negotiating spokesperson speaking at the end of the table, it was all of us members. Giving our input through surveys, deciding what gains we needed to make, and figuring out the best contract language. The first raise from Highgate was 13% and now it’s 20.5%. That’s huge! 33.5% over nine years! This is a big thing for me to see the wages come so far, and see the importance and power of the union.”
The Pacific Beach Hotel negotiating committee members were: Spokesperson Karl Lindo, Business Agent Wil Chang, Unit Chair Kapena Kanaiaupuni, Vice Chair/Secretary Jacqueline Taylor-Lee, Vice Chair/Treasurer Cesar Pedrina, and Stewards Kohry Mulkey, Jeffrey Cho, and Guillerma Ulep.
Members vote enthusiastically on their second contract.
Business Agent Karl Lindo (standing, center) and Unit Chair Kapena Kanaiaupuni (standing, right) detail the terms of the new contract to members of housekeeping as the rest of the committee stands to take questions.
Negotiating committee members Guillerma “Lerma” Ulep and Jeff Cho handed out a summary of the agreement and a ballot to each member.
Unit Vice Chair/Secretary Jacqueline Taylor-Lee (left) works at the check-in table.
Business Agent Wil Chang sits with a group of members from housekeeping to explain the benefits in the new contract. Steward Jeffrey Cho said, “We felt really safe negotiating these benefits with the new management. And people like Wil and Karl were with us every step of the way.”
Perseverance Pays Off—Pacific Beach Hotel Workers’ Timeline from Organizing to Strong 2nd Contract
