Braeden Coloma 
Braeden’s grandfather Tom Poy worked at Hamakua Sugar on the Big Island.

Hannah Asano 
Hannah’s great-aunt is Amelia Among Rego, who worked at Dole.

Kaeo Rezentes 
Kaeo’s aunt Pamela Green is retired from Foodland and as Kauai Division Director.

Breeann Yap 
Breeann’s father Brandon Yap works at Unit 4203 - McCabe, Hamilton & Renny.

Challys Pascual
 Challys’s grandfather worked at Pioneer Mill on Kauai.

Remembering Dave Mori—continued from page 2 
The fight to win a union contract for Pacifi c Beach Hotel workers

One of the last and most significant cases Dave Mori spearheaded before retiring from the ILWU Local 142 in January 2013 was the fight to achieve a collective-bargaining agreement for the employees at the Pacific Beach Hotel (which later became the Alohilani Resort Waikiki Beach).

He began his 8-year battle with the hotel in 2005, when then President Fred Galdones asked him, as the Oahu Division Director, to negotiate the first contract with Pacific Beach Hotel.

Workers win union election by one vote 
The ILWU had been locked in a bitter fight to organize the workers at the hotel since 2001. At the time Mori received this assignment, the union had just won a second election run by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which was ordered because the results of the first election were tainted by the hotel’s interference in the employees’ free choice. The union won the second election by one vote.

Terrible violations of the law 
The hotel fought long and hard to rid itself of the Union. As soon as the negotiations over a first contract started in 2006, the hotel began committing unfair labor practices. Between 2006 and 2010, it committed a total of 23 unfair labor practices—or violations of federal labor law. These included withdrawing recognition from the union, terminating employees and refusing to rehire bargaining committee members, terminating one bargaining committee member multiple times, engaging in bad faith bargaining with the union, and making unlawful unilateral changes to the terms and conditions of employment for the hotel’s employees.

The winning case built by Mori and his committee 
It was in this fight that Mori utilized all of the strongest skills he had developed and sharpened over his years as Business Agent and Oahu Division Director for the ILWU. He was able to keep the hotel at the bargaining table for six years, all the while gathering more information to use against it through unfair labor practice proceedings. The actions of the hotel were so egregious that the NLRB was able to obtain, with the Union’s assistance, two injunction orders and one contempt of injunction order from the Federal District Court for the District of Hawaii.

In large part because of Mori’s and his team’s efforts, employees who were terminated unlawfully were offered their jobs back with full back pay and restored benefits amounting to approximately 1.4 million dollars. Because the hotel acted unlawfully even after the court ordered it to cease and desist its wrongful actions, the hotel was ordered to pay the attorney fees for the NLRB attorneys and the union’s attorneys who were forced to return to court to stop the hotel. This increased the amount the hotel had to pay to over 1.8 million dollars.

For the sake of the workers 
The workers at the Pacific Beach Hotel were the beneficiaries of Mori’s loyal, fighting spirit. He never gave up on the employees who wanted the union to represent them—no matter how costly and exhausting it was to continue to fight the hotel. He knew how important union representation was to the employees who risked their livelihoods to support the union.

Mori orchestrated legal and financial attacks on the hotel, and his relentlessness finally motivated it to hire a new management company beginning January 2013. As one of his final acts as Oahu Division Director, Dave reached out to the new company and was miraculously able to reach a first contract during the month before he left his union position.

Today, ILWU members at the hotel continue to enjoy from the benefits and protections won by that first collective bargaining agreement—and continue to build on it with each successive contract.