Hawaii hotel strikers seek unemployment benefits with no guarantee of getting those payments

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – While workers at the Hilton Hawaiian Village fight for better wages and a bigger workforce, they are also heading into another fight — for unemployment benefits.

They could be eligible, but maybe not, if they do too much damage to the hotel’s income.

At the picket line at the Kalia Road entrance to the Hilton Hawaiian Village, like his colleagues, 9-year bellman Gerritt Vincent filed for unemployment but may not know for years if he will get paid.

“They told us we shouldn’t really expect much, but just to apply because you know, we’re worth it,” Vincent said.

Vincent says with no money coming in, unemployment payments would be helpful.

“I told my kids, ‘We’re sorry. We’re not going to go to McDonald’s. I told my wife, ‘Sorry, we can’t go to Target for next few days, we’re going to have to eat what we have at the house,’” he said.

Cade Watanabe, UNITE Local 5 financial secretary-treasurer, said, “We’re telling all of our members not to depend on it, not to expect it.”

That’s because it depends on how much the strike impacts Hilton’s bottom line.

Under Hawaii law and court rulings, if a strike has little or no impact on operations, workers are eligible for unemployment benefits. If the company loses 20 to 30% or more of its revenue, the workers are not eligible.

Even experts, like state House Labor Committee Chair Scot Matayoshi, can find it confusing.

“It’s honestly kind of counterintuitive to me, too,” he said.

It seems backward because strikes are designed to damage and even shut down the employer, but if the union succeeds in that, they don’t get unemployment.

Matayoshi says the law seems structured as a compromise, supporting striking workers without disabling their employers.

“If the strike is to such an extent that the whole business gets shut down, especially a crucial business, like a hospital, then unemployment benefits are withheld as perhaps incentive not to do that,” he said.

But it also creates another conflict between owners and workers. Employers will fight the unemployment applications, by offering the state Labor Department proof of business disruption severe enough for the state to deny the benefits,

“That’s something that will take a lot of time, ” Watanabe said. “That also will require the employer to share their financials.”

Financials the union will challenge on behalf of its workers, in disputes that can go on for years.

And every dispute is unique.

For example, nurses who were locked out from Kapiolani Hospital, didn’t leave voluntarily and the hospital still operated. But the Labor Department says the nurses’ eligibility is still under review.

While the law confusion seems to require change to the law, even with all the power labor has in the state, unions fear that by opening up the labor laws at the legislature could lead to unexpected negative consequences.

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