Labor leader David Trask Jr., who brought HGEA into modern era, dies
STAR-ADVERTISER / AUG. 15, 1976
David Trask Jr.
Former state lawmaker and Hawaii Government Employees Association leader David K. Trask Jr., who is credited with leading the union into the modern era of collective bargaining, died today in Honolulu.
He was 93.
Trask, who served 11 years in the state Legislature as a representative and senator from Maui, led efforts to create collective bargaining for Hawaii public employees.
“Hawaii’s public employees have lost a true champion with the passing of David K. Trask, Jr.,” said Randy Perreira, the current HGEA executive director, in a news release.
On the HGEA website, the union, which represents state and county white-collar workers, credits Trask with transforming the HGEA following the passage of the collective bargaining law.
“Mr. Trask was a major force in bringing fairness to Hawaii’s government workforce through collective bargaining, and many of the rights and benefits that these employees enjoy today can be traced back to his influence and efforts.”
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Perreira said the HGEA “mourns the passing of a great leader of our union and our state. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the entire Trask family.”
Trask served as HGEA executive director from 1969 to 1981.
He was elected to the Legislature in 1954, when the Democrats took over control of the Hawaii Legislature. He served six years in the House and five years in Senate.
Trask was born into a prominent political family. His father David Sr. was an early member of the Democratic Party in Hawaii.
His late older brother Arthur K. Trask, a lawyer active in the Democratic Party, was a member of the Statehood Commission and a supporter of Hawaiian rights and sovereignty.
His first cousin, the late Tommy Trask, was the head of the ILWU.
Trask’s son Peter is a labor attorney and was appointed to oversee the United Public Workers union after the conviction of former director Gary Rodrigues on money laundering and embezzlement charges in 2002.
His nieces Mililani and Haunani-Kay are leaders in the Hawaiian sovereignty movement.
16 responses to “Labor leader David Trask Jr., who brought HGEA into modern era, dies”
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A loss.
although, I disagreed with him, from time to time; He did the best for whom, he represented.
I don’t know him but he was important in the movement to over promise health and retirement benefits for unproductive state workers. This guaranteed monopoly party dominance for decades and helped to create the mess we are in today. We are not the only state with this mess. Check out Illinois.
Condolences to Haunani whose work is much admired!
Haunani-Kay. Isn’t she the awful child who stick her middle finger at Senator Inouye. After that we never heard from her again. Even the Hawaiians shunned her.
I believe she is sick you A Hole.
Happy to hear she’s sick. But there’s nothing new about that; she has always been sick. Pretty Crappy Warrior uses language inspired by her hero Haunani-Kay. Here’s a photo of Hunani-Kay:
http://www.angelfire.com/hi5/bigfiles3/TraskFuckBen091100.jpg
Photo source: Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Wednesday, September 13, 2000. Trask’s sign refers to Ben Cayetano, Governor of Hawai’i. She is standing in front of the Governor’s mansion, where the Governor was entertaining a delegation of dignitaries from the Philippines. Not shown in the photo are children under Professor Trask’s control who were also holding signs with vulgar language. The woman standing next to Trask in the September 2000 photo appears to be Vicky Holt Takamine, founder of the ‘Ilio’ulaokalani coalition, who later sued the State of Hawai’i regarding “Native Hawaiian rights.” Ms. Takamine was the organizer of the red-shirt protest rally of August 6, 2005. These lovely folks were upset in 2000 that the Governor had forced the resignation of trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs because, according to the Rice v. Cayetano Supreme Court decision of February 28, 2000 those trustees had been illegally elected under a racially segregated election scheme that prohibited 80% of Hawai’i’s people from voting for OHA trustees. The man in the photo is unidentified. Someone speculated he might be Ray Soon, until very recently at that time a high official with Kamehameha Schools. This incident at the time a group of dignitaries from the Philippines was visiting the Governor hit especially hard at Governor Cayetano, who is ethnic Filipino, and also insulted the substantial portion of Hawai’i’s people who are also Filipino.
I’m not even going to entertain this comment or I will end up being banned.
He’s gone but the Not Right to Work State remains–his legacy.
A true loss for Main Street. The Millennialls will have to learn how to fight for their fair share as us Boomers are fading away into the sunset.
Mike, Don’t be silly. The millennials will not fight for anything. They will vote for Bernie “The Pickpocket” Sanders and bask in their attitude of entitlement.
OK. Vote for someone who will fight for your rights in behalf of you.
A true icon in the labor history of Hawaii….We have lost many great leaders that developed the present social welfare legislation in Hawaii and today’s labor leaders and legislators could learn a lot from these past icons of Hawaii’s history but unfortunately, they all have their own agenda which is a total mess. All they op for is photo ops and publicity not to mention recognition and yet, get very little done…..
Anyone no matter the political affiliation if he was dedicated to his cause and fought for it deserve recognition by his followers. After all, the opposition likewise adore their guru just as much. The difference is at death there should be reverence instead of hate. A person dedicated to his cause is much admired by the adherents and they do have a right to express their admiration/grief. Never cared for the union but do respect their right to fight for their members.
Wall Street’s union is called the lobbyists.
The HGEA strike of 1976 lasted weeks. “Somebody” brought in a fact finder to helped the stalled negotiations. Dr. Joel Seidman, Dean, U. of Chicago School of Business. Dr. Joel, my instructor, at the time, at UH, used his participation in the negotiations in class as “teaching examples”. The strike ended rather quickly after Dr. Joel got involved.
I suspect that Trask, HGEA and the folks on the other side of the table learned much from Dr. Joel ( I did), and that “lessons learned” had influence on future negotiations.
The Public Worker Unions are now strangling the state so Trask must have been very good at what he did. 5 billion in unfunded liabilities and ever growing. Keep voting for the same (D) people, you deserve what the corrupt, longtime self serving politicians and their special interest groups are doing to the state.