HONOLULU—The 30th Annual Western Regional Summer Institute for Union Women (SIUW) was held June 16-20, 2011 at the Ala Moana Hotel, whose workers are members of UNITE HERE Local 5. Over 80 union activists from more than 20 Locals in Hawaii, California, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska participated in the Institute.
The Oahu Division Executive Board (DEB) meeting on April 29, 2011 featured State of Hawaii Department of Labor and Industrial Relations Director Dwight Takamine.
Under Republican Governor Linda Lingle, private profit and private business came first. The Department of Labor and Industrial Relations lost 61 positions, programs were underfunded, and enforcement was lax. Pro-business people were put in charge of key programs and workers rights became secondary.
Demonstrations were held in every state in the nation on April 4, 2011 to oppose the attacks on workers’ rights to bargain collectively.
“Don’t waste any time mourning. Organize!” These were the last words of union organizer and song writer Joe Hill before he was executed by the State of Utah on November 19, 1915. Hill was a member of the IWW and was in Utah organizing mine workers.
The most comprehensive electorate survey—the American National Election Studies (ANES)—were carried out by the University of Michigan beginning in the late 1940s. What these studies showed was that Americans fall into three categories with regard to their political knowledge. A tiny percentage know a lot about politics, up to 50%-60% know enough to answer very simple questions, and the remaining 40% know next to nothing.
From the year 2000 to 2009 the increase in productivity of U.S. workers was 6 percent, the fourth highest in the world.
Every year the U.S. Department of Labor compares the wages, benefits, and productivity of U.S. workers and workers in countries that do a lot of business and trade with the U.S. See http://www.bls.gov/fls/home. htm#comp
Chart 1 right shows the increase in output per hour for the nine years from 2000 to 2009. Workers in Korea, Taiwan, the Czech Republic, and the United States increased their productivity by 6 percent or better.
Maui Kaiser Permanente members Kaulana Kaa‘a, Rusty Helm, and Bryan Nakamoto help the ILWU organize new members in the health care industry. The Kaiser members are highly skilled medical diagnostic imaging technicians who do computerized tomography (CT), radiologic (X-ray), and mammography scanning.
Your union contract is a written agreement with your employer. It guarantees your wages, benefits, conditions of employment, and rights. It is enforceable through a grievance procedure and ultimately in a court of law.
If you want more information about your union or union contract; if you have a problem on the job; if you want to become more involved with your union, the first person you should talk to is your union steward or Unit officer.
Unit officers and stewards are elected by the members of your unit to help their fellow union members on the job. They serve as volunteers and receive no extra pay or special privileges. Their names should be posted on the union bulletin board.
ILWU officers and members march in support of workers’ rights in the State of Wisconsin at the Hawaii State Capitol on February 26, 2011. (Front, left to right) Oahu Business Agent Shane Ambrose, Michael Ruiz and Tavita Tufaga from Unit 4415 - Hawaiian Memorial Park, and former unit officer from The Honolulu Advertiser Rick DeCosta.