Hurricane Katrina hit the coast of southeast Louisiana and southern Mississippi in the early morning of August 29, 2005, as an extremely dangerous Category 4 storm with winds of 135 miles per hour. The storm caused tremendous damage and displaced over one million people from the states of Louisiana and Mississippi.

For the first time ever, the ILWU has a television commercial! The 30-second commercial features who we are and what we do through the faces of ILWU members representing the diversity of our union—by industry, island, age, ethnicity, gender.

On Kauai, ILWU retirees celebrated their Labor Day early as they packed the ILWU Hall in Lihue on August 13 for
their annual picnic. Kauai Division hosts the picnic every year and provided the food, door prizes, and entertainment.

Children’s activities included a train ride sponsored by Kimo Apana, bouncers, and fun games that were sponsored by the Hawaii State Teachers Association and run by HSTA members. 

Hawaii Division held its Labor Day pensioner’s picnic on August 27 at Wailoa State Park. Two hundred pensioners from nine clubs attended the picnic, which is held every other year in Hilo. Big Island full-time officers prepared all the food, including beef from a cow donated by former Business Agent Herman Amaral.

Administration moved with incredible speed. Within hours after Hurricane Katrina made landfall, the Bush Administration was hard at work, taking care of big business while cutting wages and safety rules for working people.

More profits for the food industry

One day after Katrina made landfall, on August 30, Bush took care of his friends in the packaged food industry by changing the rules to allow the early entry of 2006 foreign sugar and the import of an additional 110,000 tons of Mexican refined sugar.

While the departure of a couple of major unions and the boycott of the AFL-CIO’s 50th anniversary convention by them and several others dominated the news coverage of the  event, a number of other significant and far-reaching actions by the remaining delegates eluded the national media’s reporting.

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.