Nearly 5,000 Hawaii hotel workers could walk off the job as vote to strike looms

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – Nearly 5,000 hotel workers at some of Waikiki’s biggest hotels, such as Hilton Hawaiian Village and Sheraton Waikiki, could walk off the job if they vote to strike on Thursday.

Their union, Unite Here Local 5!, claims they have not gotten a raise in two years to meet rising inflation and want better staffing conditions.

“You know, living paycheck to paycheck is so hard for me because I have kids,” one worker at Hilton Hawaiian Village said.

Hawaii News Now has reached out to the hotels involved in negotiations and is waiting to hear back.

The chair of the Hawaii Tourism Authority, Mufi Hannemann, says the timing is unfortunate as the industry has been working to recover from the Maui wildfires a year ago.

“You don’t want to see strikes happen. That’s the last option we want to see,” Hannemann said.

“Hopefully, they can come to an agreement. I’m the eternal optimist, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that will happen.”

But Hanneman says there is some good news. The June Hotel Performance Report shows that despite the overall state occupancy being down about 1% from last year, every island but Maui surpassed its 2023 June numbers. The Valley Isle is down 13%.

“Its numbers are a drag on the rest of the state, and we need to continue our focus on Maui,” said Hannemann.

To try to turn that around, Hannemann says the HTA will launch a multimillion-dollar campaign in September aimed at Southern California, with a special emphasis on marketing Maui.

Back on Oahu, the overall state of Hawaii’s tourism sector is far from the minds of Tuesday’s 1,000 picketers who could be going without a paycheck if they vote to strike on Thursday.

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