Hyatt Waikiki union begins 7-day strike

The action is part of a four-city, six-hotel campaign against the chain’s labor policies

Hyatt Waikiki’s union workers walked off the job and onto a picket line at 3 a.m. Thursday, the beginning of a planned weeklong strike in coordination with five Hyatt hotels on the mainland.

Hyatt management said the hotel continues to operate normally with roughly 240 nonunion workers and management filling in, including 135 contractors and workers from Hyatt’s neighbor island properties.

“It’s really gone very smooth … you wouldn’t notice any operational glitches,” said Hyatt general manager Jerry Westenhaver.

The job action is part of a campaign in four cities — Honolulu, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles — against the hotel chain, said Cade Watanabe, a spokesman for Unite Here Local 5. About 3,000 hotel workers are on strike nationwide against six hotels, he said.

Watanabe said nearly 500 local union workers, including housekeepers, bellmen, front desk and food and beverage employees, have been without a contract at the Hyatt since June 2010.

THIS JUNE, HYATT union workers voted to call for a public boycott of the hotel. Other job actions included a one-day strike and civil disobedience by union members in front of the Hyatt.

Westenhaver said management offered Hyatt workers a wage and benefit package identical to the offer accepted by Hilton and Starwood workers in March.

He said the union is striking to gain leverage on other hotels and to increase membership. Meanwhile it is costing workers 25 percent of their monthly wages, Westenhaver said.

“Unions are a business and they need to grow,” he said. “They are using union hotels that exist already as basically leverage to gain access to nonunion hotels so that they can grow.

“We’re disappointed that the union leadership is holding our associates’ new contract hostage in order to gain leverage for an organizing effort at nonunion Hyatt hotels on the mainland,” Westenhaver said.

Watanabe said the main issue in the negotiations is the subcontracting of jobs. The seven-day strike is also meant to publicize the boycott of Hyatt, he said.

Watanabe said working conditions are also an issue and housekeepers have been injured on the job.

“It’s not just about wages and benefits. It’s much more than that,” Watanabe said.