Over Labor Day weekend, about 5,000 hotel workers from eight Hawaii hotels, including several in Waikiki and Kauai, initiated a three-day strike. This industrial action, gathering under the banner of UNITE HERE Local 5, was carefully coordinated to send a clear message during one of the busiest travel periods of the year. These workers, as Hawaii News Now reported, walked out at 4 a.m. on Sunday, following stagnant contract negotiations concerning wages, staffing levels, and equitable workloads.
Notably, the union represented workers from properties such as the Sheraton Kauai Resort and premium Waikiki hotels like the Hilton Hawaiian Village Waikiki Beach Resort, and the Hyatt Regency, among others. The collective action ties into a broader movement spanning several U.S. cities, as hotel workers decide to take a stand on pressing labor issues. Cade Watanabe, Local 5’s financial secretary-treasurer, spotlighted the gravity of the decision, telling Star-Advertiser, “We have not seen this many of our members go on strike in over 30 years, and we don’t take that fact lightly.”
Impacting notable hotel chains such as Marriott International, Hilton Worldwide, and Hyatt Hotels, this strike comes after failed contract talks that reached an impasse. In the context of the broader hospitality industry landscape, workers across 25 hotels are striking, including cities like San Francisco, San Diego, Boston, Seattle, and Greenwich, Conn., as per Star-Advertiser. Previously, UNITE HERE members had secured significant contracts as a result of similar actions at Los Angeles hotels and after an extended strike in Detroit.
Amidst the collective bargaining, the union's demands were straightforward: wages that keep pace with rising inflation and the high cost of living, sufficient staffing, and the rectification of pandemic-era service reductions. Despite the hotel industry seeing a profit increase of 26.6% since 2019, the staffing levels dropped, said Local 5, evidencing an imbalance in the profit-sharing dynamics within these organizations. Kenziro Kloulubak, a housekeeper at Hilton Hawaiian Village, clearly underscored the workers' frustrations, and said in a statement obtained by Star-Advertiser, “I am on strike because our employers keep offering excuses, instead of solutions, to the issues making it harder and harder to do our jobs. It doesn’t matter how many times my coworkers and I tell our employer that as much as we take pride in our jobs, we cannot do our jobs without the necessary supplies and adequate staff.It’s sad that it has come to this and that it takes us going on strike for our employers to respect the work we put in to make them record breaking profits.”
The strike’s timing is of particular note, poised to disrupt hotel operations during a peak tourist influx. The union voices a collective aspiration to ensure tourism benefits not only the mainland-based hotel owners but also the local communities that are the backbone of this industry. Watanabe elucidated the union's stance and its broader implications for hospitality in Hawaii, stating to Star-Advertiser, “Hawaii’s hospitality industry is in crisis – not because of workers or the pandemic that ended more than two years ago or even the changing demographic of our guests – we’re in crisis because of the lack of respect and care our offshore hotel owners and mainland companies have for all of us.”
