Brothers and Sisters, I am honored to be here, addressing your 21st Biennial ILWU State Pensioners Conference. You and other ILWU retirees like yourselves really deserve most of the credit for building this great union and starting a peaceful revolution that transformed Hawaii into a modern, democratic society. 

You had the courage to stand up against the power of the Big 5 companies—a group of employers that had accumulated great wealth by exploiting native Hawaiians and immigrant workers from China, Japan, the Philippines, Portugal, and elsewhere. We all know the history of how the plantations deliberately recruited workers from different countries to keep them divided and how any attempt to form unions were crushed. The Big 5 had absolute control of Hawaii’s economy, legal system, and government, but you had the courage to stand up to the Big 5 and fight for economic justice on the docks and on the sugar and pineapple plantations. 

You learned from the mistakes of the past, and built a union based on the principles of racial equality and rank-and-file democracy. This enabled the ILWU to bring the different ethnic groups together into a single, industrial union, which the Big 5 was unable to break.

You had the vision to combine the economic struggle for better wages and conditions on the job, with the political struggle. You got union members and their families to organize the power of their vote and elect candidates who were friendly to labor. Instead of allowing government to be a tool of the wealthy and the Big 5, you put government to work building schools, parks, and hospitals for working class communities, and passing laws like workers compensation, unemployment insurance, and prepaid health to protect working people on the job.

Follow your footsteps 

By the time I got into the union, you retirees had already done most of the work. The active members of the ILWU have it much easier because of you. You showed us the way; you blazed the trail; and all we had to do was follow your footsteps. Today, in these tough economic times, we consider it a success if we manage to negotiate a contract with a small wage increase and prevent the takeaway of the rights and benefits that you put into place. This is particularly true in political action where most of our work is aimed at preventing the other side from weakening and taking away laws that benefit working people.

This union will never forget how much we owe to you retirees. This Pensioners Association, the pensioner clubs, and each of you will always have a place of great honor and respect in this organization. When we negotiate new contracts, we’ll remind our active members they should do what they can to negotiate pension increases for past retirees.

Where the union can help our retirees in other ways, we will do what we can. Some of you may know about the group drug plan started by our Memorial Association, which has helped to reduce the cost of prescription drugs for retirees. Using the resources of the union and the ILWU Memorial Association, we were able to put together a large enough group of several hundred retirees. We then negotiated with providers like HMSA for a group drug plan. It’s not a solution to the high cost of drugs, but it does provide some immediate relief to our retirees. This is a good example of how much more we can accomplish by organizing and acting collectively—which is what unions are all about.

Our Political Action Program will continue to place high priority on issues important to senior citizens— to protect social security, for affordable long-term care, and to find a solution to the cost of prescription drugs.

Back to politics

This problem with prescription drugs is a good time to talk about the 2002 elections and politics, which is the last subject I want to talk about before I conclude my remarks.

The ILWU has not changed its policy of Independent Political Action. The ILWU is not tied to the program of any political party. We start with what is in the best interest of our members, and then we endorse candidates from either party based on their support of union programs. 

But the political reality is this— the Republican Party has adopted a political program and goals that are almost the direct opposite of what we seek in the best interest of our members. We have our differences with Democrats, but we also share many of the same goals. This is why our union endorsements have mostly been Democratic candidates and the few Republicans we do endorse are usually at the County level. 

Take prescription drugs and Social Security—there is a big difference in how Republicans and Democrats approach this problem. 

The Republicans—and this is spelled out in the party platform of the Republican National Committee and supported by President Bush— oppose using any more public funds to expand or strengthen Social Security and Medicare. Instead, Republicans want to “fix” Social Security by diverting money from the trust fund into “personal savings accounts” which are invested in the stock market. You might want to ask Enron employees what they think about this idea. Republicans propose “modernizing” Medicare by offering a greater choice of coverage and reducing administrative costs. Republicans want us to trust the drug companies to do the right thing, and they give the example of the Medicare RX Discount card being offered by some drug manufacturers. 

On the other hand, the platform of the Democratic Party calls for more public investment in Social Security and Medicare. The Democrats want to add prescription drugs as a Medicare benefit. They want to use the budget surplus to pay for these improvements instead of giving away the surplus in tax breaks. The Democrats believe that government is needed to keep business in line and should step in to do something about medical costs and prescription drugs. On these issues, our Union’s program is closer to that of the Democrats. Sufficient funds should be invested to strengthen Social Security and expand Medicare to include prescription drugs. 

One reason these programs are underfunded in the first place is because of budget cuts that started under Republican Ronald Reagan and continued under George Bush. 

Social Security should remain a public program and not be privatized. Our union supports the idea that government needs to keep an eye on business. As workers, we know we can’t depend on management to do the right thing—that’s why we join and organize unions. 

Difference between Republicans and Democrats 

There’s a big difference between Republicans and Democrats. Let me read from our Statement of Policy on Political Action, adopted by our 22nd ILWU Local 142 Convention: 

“The Republican Party, historically in Hawaii and today, nationally and locally, has represented a conservative, often reactionary, point of view that is anti-union, anti-worker, antifamily, anti-community and anti-people. The Democratic Party also includes those who support and advocate the same or similar conservative programs as the Republicans, but it is within the Democratic Party that labor has found its most consistent allies.” 

These words about the Republicans are harsh, but let me give you some examples of the kinds of laws they want to pass in Hawaii. Republican Senator Sam Slom introduced Senate Bill 626, which would make it illegal for unions to require members to pay union dues as a condition of employment. This is the so-called Right To Work law, which is really aimed at destroying unions. Slom also introduced bills to abolish the Hawaii occupational safety and health law and to weaken workers compensation. 

On the House side, Republicans Jim Rath and William Stonebraker introduced House Bill 877 to remove “the right to organize for the purpose of collective bargaining” from our State Constitution. Another bunch of 8 Republicans (Meyer, Rath, Ontai, Djou, Auwae, Fox, Davis, and Leong) and one Democrat (Kahikina) introduced House Bill 313 which would require the governor to seize and operate the docks in case of a —continued on page 6