Hotel union plans to protest time shares today at the Ilikai

Unite Here Local 5 workers and community members from the AiKea Movement will hold a rally in front of the Ilikai Hotel today to protest the trend of widespread condominium conversions, which they say is damaging Hawaii’s economy.

The rally, which will include a street theater skit, is a collaboration between Local 5 and AiKea, which is a political and social movement made up of union members and community groups with similar goals. Launched in May 2012, AiKea played a pivotal role in this year’s repeal of the law that created the Public Lands Development Corp. (Act 55), which granted five appointees the authority to enter into public-private development agreements.

The two groups are united to stop Hawaii condominium conversions, which they say contributed to the loss of 3,250 accommodations jobs statewide between 2006 and 2010, and since 2007 has cost the state more than $30 million in annual tax revenues.

"We’ve already settled our contracts, so now we are focusing on an issue that threatens not only Hawaii union workers, but Hawaii’s economy as well," said Paola Rodelas, a communications specialist for Local 5. "This is such an important concern that we think it will be one of the largest rallies that we’ve held in years."

Rodelas said condo conversions are popular with developers, who can profit quickly from the sale of the converted units. Ultimately conversions lead to job loss because people typically don’t have the same service expectations for residential condominiums, condotels and time shares that they do for hotels.

"When jobs are lost to conversions, the state has less money to fund education, public improvements and the social services that our local working families depend on," Rodelas said.

The rally, which is slated to run from 4 to 5:30 p.m. today, will be held at the circa-1964 Ilikai Hotel, which Rodelas said is a poster child for industry job losses due to conversions. In recent times the union has been battling against a plan by New York-based iStar Financial Inc. to sell off the Ilikai’s remaining hotel rooms as condominiums. In its heyday the Ilikai employed 750 union workers; however, jobs were cut as hotel rooms were eliminated in various sales. Now, there are about 63 union workers at the hotel, which over the years has shrunk to about 200 rooms from about 800.

However, not everyone sees the trend as necessarily bad for Hawaii. During a Waikiki 20/20 Conference, which was held in October to kick off planning efforts for the district’s next couple of decades, the Star-Advertiser conducted a Waikiki poll on various topics, including the recent trend of converting hotel rooms to larger time shares or condominium units. As many as 57.6 percent of the 387 people who answered the conversion question indicated that the trend was good for Waikiki because it creates units that meet market demand. Only 35.7 percent of those surveyed about conversions said that the trend was bad because it could lead to fewer visitors and hotel related jobs.

"Converting hotel units to time-share or condo hotels is controversial because they require less labor per unit than a standard hotel. However, the conversion aids Hawaii because it provides the capital to upgrade aging hotel units, allowing us to remain competitive," said Rick Egged, president of the Waikiki Improvement Association, which organized the Waikiki 20/20 effort. "Time shares also provide higher occupancy than standard hotel units and provide higher average visitor spending. The Hawaii visitor benefits from a mix of product on the market."