Striking hotel workers have brought to light a powerful challenge to Hawaii: the idea that one job should be enough in a place where many people work second jobs and have done so for decades, often to get ahead financially or to do something they love.

When Local 5 workers talk about their second or third job, though, it’s not about fun money or to fulfill a passion or because the travel benefits are so good. It’s straight-up survival.

Nerissa Acdal leaves her 2-year-old child with a sitter during the day so she can go to work in the housekeeping department at the Moana Surfrider. Her two other children, ages 10 and 16, are in school. “I pay a relative $30 a day to watch my daughter because I can’t afford child care for $800 a month,” she said. Her husband, Zoilo, also works at the Moana Surfrider. He’s been there for eight years, she for seven. They rent a house in Kalihi that they share with a nephew, paying $1,700 a month for two bedrooms. They share one car. They have no savings. “I live paycheck to paycheck,” Acdal said. “Everything I bring home goes to pay bills.”

Her husband works seven days a week. When he’s not at the Moana, he works at a car wash in Kapolei cleaning commercial trucks. “We hardly see him. I need him. The kids need him. But he says no, we have to pay our bills,” she said.

Acdal is walking the picket line in support of her co-workers, though she has not been on the job since late August when she had shoulder surgery for an injury she says occurred on the job. She describes lifting heavy mattresses to change five layers of bedding every time a guest checks out or requests fresh sheets, and having to hand-wipe the inside and outside of the glass walls of stand-alone showers in 15 rooms per shift. She hasn’t been able to carry her 2-year-old since her surgery. She’s 37 years old, and she’s worried about what sort of shape she’ll be in when, and if, she’s able to retire.

Local 5 housekeepers working at one of the five hotels owned by Kyo-ya Hotels and Resorts make an average of $22 an hour. The National Low Income Housing Coalition estimates that to afford to rent a two-bedroom apartment in Hawaii, a worker must make more than $35 an hour. The union is asking for a $3-an-hour increase in wages.

Darren Helliangao, 32, has worked as a server at the Beachhouse restaurant at the Moana for nine years. This week he made egg salad sandwiches to share on the picket line. “That’s the cheapest thing you can make. Bread is cheap. Eggs are cheap,” he said. Helliangao is single, and he says that can be harder because couples can pool their resources during lean times. He used to work the dinner shift at the restaurant, but his hours were cut two years ago so now he works the lunch shift and is on call for the dinner shift every day. He waits until 2 p.m. and sometimes as late as 4:30 or 5 p.m. every day to find out if he’s called in for a 4 p.m. shift. He also works as a server in a downtown restaurant when he can. “I’ve always worked two jobs,” Helliangao said. “But one job is just to survive, the second job is to buy stuff that you want. The first job is for rent, phone, food, gas, electric and cable. One job is basic living.”

In between his day job and his night shift, Helliangao sometimes has an hour or so to go home to the one-bedroom cottage he rents in Kaimuki, eat something cheap that he cooked himself and rest a little before heading out again. He says he might save a little on rent if he lived outside the city, but then he’d spend hours every day in his car on the commute. He sometimes drives past all the gleaming new buildings in Kakaako and thinks how none of it is for him. “I can’t qualify for low-income housing because I work, but I can’t afford to rent for $1,500 or $1,700 a month plus parking and utilities. I’m stuck.”

Acdal is stuck, too, in a job she enjoys that offers no hope for getting ahead, saving for the future or setting aside a little something for her kids. Even basics sometimes feel like luxuries, even more so since the strike began last week. Her 16-year-old daughter recently tried out for the Farrington High School basketball team. “She asked me if she could have new shoes for basketball,” Acdal said. “I told her, ‘Not now, baby. You have to wait. We have to do the bills first.’”

Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.