Newly ratified union contracts now provide nearly 2,000 employees at Hilton Hawaiian Village with better wages and other benefits.

Unite Here Local 5 union members, who work at Hilton Hawaiian Village either as in-house employees or subcontractors with Hawaii Care & Cleaning, voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to ratify the new contracts, which will last four years, or until June 30, 2022.

The two new contracts are part of the “One Job Should be Enough” campaign maintained by Unite Here, a union that serves nearly 300,000 workers across North America.

“Most of the housekeepers, they have a second job to tackle financial difficulties, but with this amount that we get … we can live normal lives,” said Cristina Fernandez, a housekeeper at the Hilton.

Fernandez said that the new benefits help ensure her financial stability and ease her workload. She said under the old contract that some workers are too pressed for time to even take a lunch break.

Workers at the Hilton will receive wage increases of up to $6.13 per hour, increased job security and better health coverage benefits.

Cesilee Linares, who works with HCC along with her husband, said the new contract, which will allow her to become an in-house employee rather than a subcontractor, will provide her family with an extra $1,400 per month, which includes free medical coverage, and she and her husband now have pension plans.

“We’ll have full family coverage, so we can cover my two sons and not have to pay anything out of my own pocket,” she said.

The contracts were signed by negotiating committees that were made up of workers at Hilton Hawaiian Village: one for in-house employees and one for HCC workers. The HCC contract was approved for ratification by 139 of the 140 members of the negotiating committee, while the Hilton Hawaiian Village contract was approved for ratification by 912 out of 916 members of the negotiating committee.

The contracts were modeled after the November agreement made between Local 5 and Kyo-ya, which owns five Marriott-operated hotels: Sheraton Waikiki, Royal Hawaiian, Westin Moana Surfrider, Sheraton Princess Kaiulani and Sheraton Maui. The ratification of that contract ended a 51-day strike in Waikiki, in which 2,700 local workers participated.

Provisions for subcontracted workers were one of the differences in the contracts that catered to Hilton Hawaiian Village’s situation. Another key difference benefited timeshare workers.

“We got really significant wage and benefits increases for the timeshare workers as well as addressing some of their workload issues,” said Paola Rodelas, communications and community organizer for Local 5.

Rodelas said there are about 200 subcontracted cleaning workers at Hilton Hawaiian Village.

“Because of this new contract, by the end of the term of the contract, all of those subcontracted workers will have the opportunity to work in-house at the Hilton, and then moving forward there will no longer be subcontracting of housekeeping work,” she said.

The last contract for Hilton workers ended June 30, 2018. The employees have been working under the terms of that contract since that time. With the new contract now in place, workers will receive the difference in their back pay as well as other benefits retroactively.

ON THE MOVE

First Hawaiian Bank has announced the following promotions:

>> Andrew Mizon to vice president and program manager of Enterprise Portfolio Management Office. It will be his responsibility is to achieve the bank’s strategic initiatives by overseeing and coordinating multiple cross-functional projects. Mizon has 23 years of project management and business system consulting experience and joined First Hawaiian Bank as a senior project manager with the Wealth Management Service Center in 2015.

>> Drew Monahan to vice president and personal banking segment manager at the Consumer Branch Banking Division. He has a close working relationship with branch personnel and personal bankers in Guam, Saipan and Hawaii in order to deliver an enhanced customer experience. Monahan joined First Hawaiian Bank in 2009 as a marketing intern and later returned as a deposit product analyst after receiving his bachelor’s degree in business.