JAMM AQUINO / JAQUINO@STARADVERTISER.COM
UNITE HERE Local 5 members picket outside the Sheraton Moana Surfrider hotel on Sept. 3 during a three-day strike.
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In a recent Island Voices column, ILWU and Local 5 officials asked Legislators to help set hotel standards (“Lawmakers must set hotel standards,” Star-Advertiser, Sept. 22). As a former union official with the Hawaii State Teachers Association (HSTA), the purpose of our collective bargaining law is to negotiate salaries and working conditions. Hotel staff standards have unions to represent the members to negotiate salaries and working conditions. The Legislature’s as well as the governor’s responsibilities is to approve a bargaining unit cost package.
In the private sector, if unions feel their members are shortchanged in salaries and working condition, strikes can be effective but the losers are the members who are striking because they will receive no pay.
Maybe a law is needed to force employers into binding arbitration.
Strikes are not as effective as they were in the past. Now is the time to think outside the box for union members and employers.
Maurice T. Morita
Waipahu
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