CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARADVERTISER.COM
Eric Gill of Unite Here Local 5 rallies strikers at Waikiki Beach on Friday.
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The hotel workers’ strike Hawaii witnessed beginning this week has been monumental for its size. It’s bigger than any hotel strike since 1990, when 7,500 union members walked off the job for three weeks in March.
The same union, Unite Here Local 5, represents 2,700 workers who took to the sidewalks to picket five hotels owned by Kyo-ya Hotels & Resorts and managed by Marriott. While that’s smaller than in 1990, union leaders are quick with the reminder: Strike authorization votes were taken at two more properties.
Protracted strikes can be lose-lose propositions all around. Everyone is putting on a brave face in these early stages, though, with an initial halt to negotiations and union leaders giving assurances that its robust strike fund will soften the blow to workers.
Still, it’s unclear that this one could last as long as those 22 days in 1990. The cost of living has ballooned since then.
And then there’s a little development called the World Wide Web. British scientist Tim Berners-Lee actually had just developed the Web in 1989, but it wasn’t until 1993 that the enabling software was put in the public domain.
As for social media, Facebook started in 2004, and the earliest tweets didn’t emerge until two years after that.
The chatter from disgruntled tourists that once took days or weeks to get around now crosses the globe in a flash.
How long can this drag on in 2018? Those with a vested interest — all Hawaii residents — hope it isn’t long.