 It's Tuesday, it's noon, and that means it's time for What's On Your Mind, Hawaii. I'm your host Tim Apachella. This week, 20 hotel employee contracts expired for over 10,000 local five union hotel workers here in Hawaii. Since tourism is still Hawaii's number one industry, these 10,000 employees represent the light blood of our thriving tourist industry, therefore this event is being watched closely. The employees who perform their jobs day in and day out is critical for the structure of our tourist industry and keeps the local economy moving along. My interview with a local five employee and member explores what is important in today's work environment and for membership in the next five years. Also, we will discuss the Janet Supreme Court decision that will impact every union in the United States, especially public employee unions. The First Amendment freedom of speech was cited as the primary reason to strike down the existing 41-year law that allowed employees to be represented by union bargain benefits, yet not compelled to pay dues or agency fees. And now our interview. Aloha, I'm Tim Apachella for What's On Your Mind Hawaii for Think Tech Hawaii. I'm here today speaking with Paola Rodellas and Jason Maxwell who are local five union representatives and thank you very much for coming on the show. Let's start off by saying, okay, your contract with 20 different hotels basically has expired and as a result, your membership is on the line the other day and walking the street and saying, let's get a good contract. Tell me a little bit more about that. Sure. So, yes, we have 20 hotels that have union contracts expiring this year, starting on June 30th, which is just a few days ago, it comes out to about 7,600 local five members. We have 11,000 local five members total. So it's the majority of our membership with union contracts expiring. And Marriott is the biggest employer out of all of these hotels. They are the biggest and largest hotel company in the world now because they acquired Starwood last year. And so a big part of our campaign is just simply demanding that one job should be enough to live in Hawaii to raise our families to retire with dignity. And Marriott as the largest hotel company in the world has a responsibility to set that standard in the industry. I did a show earlier and it was about livable wages here in Hawaii. And certainly your industry came to mind when we were talking about what it takes to make a living wage. In fact, the housing of urban development just came out with a standard and they said for a single individual, the amount of 65,300 annually is considered a very low wage. So in that perspective, to what degree is wages part of this contract negotiation? It's definitely a part of it. You know, we as a union, we're very proud of the good wages and benefits that our members have organized for and won over the years. Just as an example, our housekeepers make $22.14 per hour. So they're not making minimum wage. They're making a pretty good wage on top of the benefits that they receive. And yet, as you've shared, you know, the cost of living is going up so much that even the great wages and benefits we've won for our members or that our members have won are still not enough. And I know Jason, too, can definitely speak on what it's like as a bartender. Well, Jason, we all know that the maximum minimum wage for the state of Hawaii is $10.10 an hour. So if your average is $22 and from there, that's pretty remarkable. Tell me about your perspective about particularly the campaign slogan, one job should be enough. I think that's a great campaign slogan that you put on this contract negotiation. Tell me a little bit about that. I see you're wearing the button on your shirt as well. So both of you. Yeah, I would say I epitomize that in the sense that I've got two good solid union jobs and it's not enough. I've lived here since 2002. There's no, I have no idea when I'd be able to get up to buy any property for myself or my family. And I work 60 to 70 hours a week between two jobs and with good union wages, benefits and it's literally still not enough for me to see on the horizon the ability to save enough and to get enough to own a home. So you actually are being representative and you're having collective bargaining to improve and enhance your wages so you can have a better life here in Hawaii. Do you guys have any sense of those workers who are non-represented? What kind of wages they're making? Any idea? Yeah. I mentioned I have two good union jobs. Also for years, work a third job that was non-union and it was easily 40% less. Some of my friends at some of those non-union hotels and others that work several different non-union hotels in Waikiki, same beachfront properties, make 10 bucks an hour less in some cases. Certainly no pre-medical, certainly no pension, no retirement benefits at all. And that's the norm in most non-union hotels that exist side by side with the union hotels. So it's at least 30 to 40% less in most, in many cases I'll say. You guys have 10,000 members here that are depending on how these contract negotiations go. What are some of the primary things that are important to your membership? What are the priorities your membership has identified in this contract round? And how do you think that's going to go? I think a lot of the issues that our members have flagged boil down the job security. Like, yes, wages and benefits are important. And we have, you know, despite the cost of living, have gotten our members pretty good wages and benefits. But it doesn't matter if we get like the best wage increases or benefits increases, this contract if jobs are being cut because of the rise of automation and technology replacing jobs or because of subcontracting and outsourcing and coming in and taking away jobs. It makes no sense to be the highest paid unemployed worker, right? So a lot of it boils down to job security. And in that, like I said, that's, you know, how do we address automation and technology? How do we address things like subcontracting and outsourcing? Hours getting cut, those kind of things. Can you guys give me an example of how automation and technology has actually displaced employees or membership? Currently at the Wacky Beach Marriott, the Marriott's been really big about rolling out this checking in with your phone type of thing. That it's a constant push towards using technology to do the jobs that people have traditionally held. And so that's a thing that's already displacing in. There are places in other cities that we've heard of or seen where they even use an iPad to check you in as opposed to just having a person there to speak to you. Of course, Hawaii is very much on aloha and person to person and personal. That's a thing that I think sells the island, but the people that own these properties don't live here. And they typically don't really concern themselves with that. And so that's definitely a fear. I'm a bartender. Hasn't happened in Hawaii, but certainly there's technology out there. We're already hearing about them using robots to pour drinks instead of having a. Did you just say robots to pour drinks? Absolutely. Yeah, they've got arms. They've got it's a setup. You can find it online, but they've got the bottles set up and their robot arms that come pour the drink the exact amount, put it on the bar in front of you. That exists. That's the person. That's something I'm worried about because I know the tendency is to figure out ways of cutting, cutting, cutting and they can sit and negotiate with you and smiling your face. And in the back of their minds, they're already looking a few years down the road of ways to cut you, cut you off. No, boy, this, this one really caught me off guard. I remember back in the day and maybe I was just a little bit out of college when they introduced the idea of your poor gun had a finite amount of alcohol versus a free pour. And that was implemented for years until the marketplace or the customer said, I'm going to go to those establishments that don't have a preset gun that's going to disperse the alcohol. I'm going to go and frequent those establishments that free pour. Now almost the entire industry is back to free pour. So there's an example where technology did not win the day. Do you think that is going to happen here? And they still, and even with the free pour, they're still, I've worked several different bars, there's still certain instances where, yeah, they make you use your jigger. Some cities are, they, some cities still use those little, I know exactly what you're talking about, the little ball weighted thing that cuts the drink off a couple of our union places don't have it in our union shops. We tend to have some ability to push back without fear of getting fired just for speaking up. And we can speak up for the customers to our management and say, this is what they want. And they, the marketplace also will show it, but we're lying on it. I just, I'm careful to think that the marketplace would bear out with, I don't want to rely on that possibility because I know the, I know the ownership side of it is constantly looking for ways to cut. And maybe the jobs come back after five years, but then what happens to the guys that have been working 30 years, they're 58, and then their jobs cut and takes four or five years from marketplace to bring it back. Now those guys can't retire with dignity. I saw it happen firsthand at the Ilikai. I was there and at the time it was the condo conversion issue. The Ilikai had hundreds of jobs cut and lost. And we just got a contract, but it's still 70% of those jobs were gone because they cut, they used condo conversion to cut out. And it's, and it's essentially in timeshare those types of ways to cut jobs. And that tends to be the ownership that the banks, the big corporations that sit in New York, that don't live here and care about the workers here. Their tendency is to figure out ways of cutting the jobs and cutting the labor. So they can just maximize the profit and make profit off of the sunshine and the ocean. And they don't care about leaving much here for the workers. And, you know, our fierce technology will be the next thing coming. But it's always going to be something because their idea is to cut the work. And I don't necessarily, for lack of a better word, trust the marketplace to protect working class people. Well, I think you said it best. You said it may take four or five years for the customer demands to actually reverse something that's been implemented. So, I mean, that's a long time to be without employment. So I get that. Can you give me an example of how hotel chains are outsourcing? I wasn't quite sure about what implications that meant. Yes. So subcontracting is one way to do it. So we have pretty good language in our contracts already that say that they can't subcontract or outsource any new departments, right? But we have that it was implemented, I think, in 2002. And but we have some companies that got grandfathered in. So one example is at the Hilton Hawaiian Village for their graveyard shift cleaning, as well as their public areas cleaning. They subcontract the company called Hawaii Care and Cleaning. And we've had multiple issues with that. For example, for around seven years, these workers weren't. So another provision we have in the contract is that if they do use a subcontractor, they still have to be paid the union wage rate. For seven years, HCC was not paying their workers the proper wage rate. I think at the time they were being paid around like $9 an hour, which is minimum wage at the time. Was that a grievance that was filed and was it upheld? Yes. So it did end up becoming a grievance. Unfortunately, Jesus, yeah, it took nearly seven years for them. The workers had originally actually had filed a lawsuit. They filed a lawsuit. They found an attorney who would represent them pro bono and they lost the suit. And then but the silver lining in that is because of the suit, we learned about this issue. And then we filed the grievance and the workers did end up getting it was something like $1.1 million being stole stolen in wages from these workers. And these workers did get that money back just last December. Well, that's seven years of long delay justice, but eventually some of it was returned. Let's talk about what I think a lot of people have on their minds and that is to what degree are hotel workers able to sustain themselves and show up to work? And obviously how they are being treated is a reflection on how the customers are going to be received and treated. Are those issues part of this contract? Is it part of the discussion? Because if you're a tourist, you would hope that the people that you're being having face to face time with are being well treated in the hotel industry. I'll reflect on I think about a month ago. We're tied in with other cities as well as United here and Vegas is a big United here hub. And I just recall a lot of patrons from Hawaii like to go to Vegas or 9th Island. Many of my friends are planning on going delayed because it came out that their contract expired I think a few weeks before ours and they were already set and ready to potentially strike at any moment. And so I mean, I know firsthand of folks that were like, I'm going to delay my trip because I don't want to walk into a strike and that happened. And it's, you know, I feel similarly here. We're not at that point yet in our negotiations. But should they go south and we don't, you know, we'd like for them to move along in a manner that won't disrupt that type of thing. But it's a ton of, I mean, 7000 workers. It's all the main hotels. We're all lined up together. All the workers are in unison standing together. So we'll do what we have to do. We hope that things move along in a way that won't get to that point, but you never know. That brings me the question is you had mentioned earlier that the owners are, you know, not of the state and they're living somewhere on the east coast or maybe internationally. To what degree is the attitude about this particular round of contact negotiations? Because it does make a difference on on management's attitude about basically constructing a fair and balanced contract. Are you, is there any indications that that is not the case? That is, there is an attitude that there's not a fair and balanced approach to this? We're still really early on in negotiations. We only had one session so far. But like Jason said, we've had other cities that are negotiating with Marriott as well because they are the biggest company now. And so we have cities like San Diego, Chicago, Boston that have been in negotiations. And yeah, I mean, in some ways, we don't really know quite what to expect because I mean, I guess before our local, we haven't, this is our first time really dealing with Marriott as a major hotel company. In the past, it's been Hilton, because we represent the Hilton Hawaiian Village. It's the largest Hilton in the world. And and then the Kyoya hotels, the four Kyoya hotels, it's Sheridan, Waikiki, the Royal Hawaiian, the Sheridan Princess, Kailani and the Westin, Juana, Sirfrider. Those have been kind of the main companies that were kind of up for bat first and contract negotiations. And then we would deal with Marriott. This is our first time really dealing with Marriott as the top player. So we hope they'll bargain in good faith. And like Jason said, we hope for the best that this and come down to, you know, us having to go on strike. But I know the members are willing to do whatever it takes. Okay, well, we're going to take a quick break here. I'm Tim Appichella for What's on Your Mind Hawaii. We'll be right back. Hello, I'm Yukari Kunisue. I'm your host of New Japanese Language Show on Think Tech, Hawaii called Konnichiwa, Hawaii, broadcasting live every other Monday at 2 p.m. Please join us where we discuss important and useful information for the Japanese language community in Hawaii. The show will be all in Japanese. Hope you can join us every other Monday at 2 p.m. Aloha. There was a new woman who lived in a shoe. She had so many children she didn't know what to do. She gave them some broth without any bread and kissed them all soundly and put them to bed. Hunger is a story we can end. End it at feedingamerica.org. Aloha. Welcome back. This is Tim Appichella for What's on Your Mind Hawaii for Think Tech Hawaii. I'm here with Payola Rodelis and I'm here with Jason Maxwell. They are worth local five and we're discussing basically contract implications and the ongoing contract renewal for 20 different hotels. So thank you for joining us. Let's talk about something that's going to impact all unions, not just those that are of the public sector, but also the private sector. And that is the recent Supreme Court case of Janus. And one could argue that this Supreme Court case was ripe to happen a long time ago. It's a 41-year decision that was made in 1977. I believe it was the Aboud Supreme Court decision that was a 6-3 vote basically compelling all members to pay into the union for representation. And back in 1977 there was an argument whether or not union dues were required to be paid by people that necessarily didn't want to be represented by the union. And at that time 1977 they said, okay, you won't have to pay union dues, but you will be paying agency fees, which by the way were basically the same price. So one could argue that this has been hanging out there for 41 years. And as of recent, 2014, it was almost decided to reverse it, but it didn't happen. So now 2018 it actually has been reversed. Any thoughts about this recent decision and what impacts to local five do you see forthcoming? All right. So first of all, I think the Janus decision is an attack on all working people. Yes, it starts with the public sector unions, but we know it's not going to stop there, especially with just the way this current administration has been in the corporations that have been backing so-called right-to-work all across the country. And so it may not be directly impacting our members yet. It absolutely indirectly impacts our members. It's going to impact teachers who teach our members kids. It's going to impact the public sector as a major employer in the state. So it's obviously going to impact them. We really view it as an attack and it really shouldn't be taken lightly, but at the same time we know that if it does come down to the private sector, we need to continue to organize and fight. You probably of all your 11,000 members, I would imagine you have just a handful, if that, of people that say, I will prefer to pay agency fees versus member dues. Do you have members that are paying an agency fee at all? I believe so, but I don't have the numbers on exactly how many of them are doing that currently. Does local five or any other unions that you can imagine have strategies to persuade now that this is the law of the country to persuade people that it's still in their best interest to pay union dues for the contract and for representation that from what we discussed, a wage that is far in excess of minimum wage here in state of Hawaii. Yeah, actually, like I said, it's going to come down to organizing and really talking and organizing to membership. Our union right here, our largest local in the entire union is in a right to work state. It's a culinary local 226 in Las Vegas. They have 55,000 members and most of them pay their union dues because they still see the benefits of being a union member and that takes organizing. Jason actually got to see them firsthand with that two years ago. Yeah, 2016, when we were fighting against Trump, actually trying to get Clinton elected and Democrats in that state, I volunteered to spend some time to knock doors in Vegas for about three weeks talking to people working with that union. They're very active. They're very they're in love with the union. They know the importance of it. They're active and they volunteer on a large percentage to push the elections to push the campaigns that will for people that will support their genders and working class agendas. So Vegas is our Nevada's a right to work state and Vegas I think sort of has cracked the code on maintaining a really high percentage of memberships that members that will come in and make sure they their dues are paid because they see the value of the union. But this isn't new as you cited. There are states that are right to work states. I'm from Nashville, Tennessee, born and raised. I've witnessed the de-unionizing of that state from my childhood up raised. My dad was a union worker for Crafts. He'll test back in the day. He was a union line worker. They broke up that union, forced him into another position. That was in the 70s and minimum wage there is still 213 an hour for a tip worker like myself. I was a bartender there. I still have cousins that bartend their same companies, Marriott's, Holiday Inn's, Sheraton's. They pay their guys that minimum wage because of something they call a tip credit. And they've gotten away with maintaining that 213 an hour wage from I think it was 1983. I was a kid at the time, but I remember it happening and hearing on the news that okay, people are going to pay 325 but tip workers is maintained 213. And every time there's an increase in minimum wage, tip workers maintain that 213 tip credit. Don't tip workers. I know some people in the restaurant industry and aren't they required to kind of give back some of their tips because of the workers that are in the kitchen or they're not servers, but they're maybe on the bus end part of things. And so their tip are actually being sliced and diced. Yeah. That's now in our shops and our union shops that doesn't happen because we are union and we can fight it. But in non union shops and especially in these non union states, these Janice, these, I won't use the word Janice, but these right-to-work states, that definitely happens. The owners are taking the tips from customers that are intended for the worker that's making 213 an hour and they're just sub, the word wouldn't be subcontracting, but they're taking the tip. That's how they subsidize their labor. They're taking it. There are places, subverting is the word that comes to my mind, but it's true. There are places here and I guess I won't name them, but there are certainly popular bars in Waikiki. I know workers that work there, they can't maintain a staff because they take those tips and they subvert all their labor through, and it's not a union shop, but they use those tips to pay the entire labor force. And that's how that place runs. And it's a popular bar and you would never see the same people working there over a month because they forgot really quickly that we're getting robbed by the people that own this place. And that potential is out there. Some states now where they're trying to pass laws, I've seen owners come on television and say, the workers don't have the right to keep all that money. They should turn it into the place and we should be able to use that to help pay our labor costs. We've had, I've seen owners say that and they're trying to get laws passed and others say, I think LA was one and they shot it down recently, but they're trying to push for it. So it's already happening. Ms. Candice, court case came down to the issue of freedom of speech and saying that all workers have the right not to have their speech impinged through a third party. In this case, unions are considered the third party. Do you think that sort of issue is going to further change how unions are treated here either by Supreme Court decisions or just the marketplace in general? I know membership for all unions across the country have been diminishing and do you think that the best days of the unions are over or do you think there's going to be a resurgence someday in the future? I hope there's going to be a resurgence and I think we're seeing that, you know, this past year we've been seeing a lot of the teacher strikes across the mainland in a lot of states where they didn't even have a union or they're not allowed to, they're legally not allowed to go on strike. So that's been really exciting to see that same local in Vegas, that's part of our union. They, like Jason had said earlier, they were authorizing to strike. So they did a strike vote. They filled an entire basketball arena with members to do this strike vote. It was about 25,000 of their 55,000 members voted and they authorized a strike and it was enough to get the biggest companies, Caesars and MGM to say, okay, we'll settle. There's no way we want to go and deal with you guys on strikes. So yeah, I think we're really seeing a resurgence. It is really sad that union growth in general has been going down but our local, our union memberships actually been going up over the past years because I think people really do see the value of being a local five member. Well, we have in this state, particularly for your industry, increasing tourism. I mean, the amount of generation of revenue each year is somewhere between the eight and 10%. That's quite a, you know, that's quite an increase for hotels here that see that kind of generation of increased revenue. And so do you think there is an attitude that they're going to share in some of your concerns, particularly you said we're not necessarily trying to, you know, as our priority, higher wages but more job security with the increase of tourism and certainly profitability for these hotels? How do you think the management and the owners are going to respond to that particular request about job security? We hope they'll respond well because you're right. The industry is doing really well. This year, we're seeing record high visitor spending, visitor, what do you call it? Visitors are visitor rivals, room rates, the sales of hotels, like everything is just on record high right now. And just even anecdotally, when I've been hearing in the hotels now this, now this July, I mean, occupancy rates are really, really high. So we hope that, yes, the industry will see that, yeah, they're thriving right now, but their members should be thriving too. Okay, well, I just want to say I wish you guys much luck in your membership. I hope they enjoy the benefits of being represented. And I hope that the contract negotiations go well, because everyone's going to be impacted whether they love a union or hate a union. So everyone's going to feel the impacts of how well this contract negotiation goes well. I want to thank you very much for your time with What's On Your Mind Hawaii. Thank you so much. I'm Tim Apachello for What's On Your Mind Hawaii for Think Tech Hawaii. Aloha. Well, that's our show for this Tuesday. Welcome you back, please. Come back on July the 17th on noon. Again, Mahalo for watching What's On Your Mind Hawaii for Think Tech Hawaii. Aloha.