Frustration over Hawaii’s jammed-up unemployment system prompts rally

About 200 people vented frustration and demanded help with Hawaii’s overwhelmed jobless benefits system Wednesday outside a closed unemployment office and the state Capitol.

The demonstration, largely organized by Hawaii Workers Center and the Unite Here Local 5 labor union, was an amplified display filled with rally cries, personal pleas, signs, flags and Waikiki hotel worker Mark Kamahele playing a snare drum.

“Hey hey! Ho ho! Open up the unemployment doors,” participants chanted to Kamahele’s rattling rhythm.

“When working families are under attack, what do we do?” Misty Pegram, a Workers Center organizer, called out over a megaphone, to which the crowd replied: “Stand up! Fight back!”

The roughly 90-minute late-morning rally, which included a march from the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations main office downtown to the state Capitol about four blocks away, drew appearances from several lawmakers and former Gov. Neil Abercrombie expressing support.

Police presence was not heavy, with officers guiding crosswalk use and observing from a distance.

A request by rally organizers to meet with DLIR Director Anne Perreira-Eustaquio outside the unemployment office was not granted.

DLIR has been swamped with unemployment claims since early last year in large part because of the agency’s reliance on a state mainframe computer from the 1980s. Efforts to deploy technological workarounds, establish call centers and recruit volunteers and extra paid staff have helped only partially.

To date, DLIR has received about 602,000 claims, and paid out $4.8 billion in regular or special state and federal benefits.

Still, thousands of claims have been tied up over issues that can range from simple typos to complex rule determinations. Perreira-Eustaquio recently said office staff wouldn’t be able to handle in-person demand, so DLIR continues to provide as much, but admittedly insufficient, help as it can online and by phone.

Sergio Alcubilla, a Workers Center executive committee member, said too many residents who lost income because of COVID-19 restrictions can’t pay for basic needs and have no idea if or when unemployment compensation will reach them.

“It’s that uncertainty that brings us out here today,” he said over a public address system set up near the mauka steps of the Capitol. “The last year has been a nightmare for so many people.”

Earl Kaamoi, an idle Hyatt Regency Waikiki bellman, said a DLIR call center contractor on the mainland told him to hold tight after his unemployment checks stopped arriving in late September.

“They said someone will call you,” Kaamoi recounted to the crowd. “It’s been over five months since then. I just want them to open up (the unemployment office) again.”

Other workers expressed frustration over not being able to reach DLIR representatives by phone.

Karen Camp, an unemployed auto industry worker, said she once made 473 unanswered phone calls seeking assistance from DLIR in one day.

“We worked hard to get the unemployment, and it should be given to us,” she told the crowd.

Robyn Conboy told the crowd that her record of unsuccessful phone calls to DLIR in a day is 1,000.

Part of Conboy’s problem is that nearly all her recent income was as a self-employed figure skating teacher at Ice Palace, but after she lost this work during the coronavirus pandemic she was told that her unemployment compensation under the patchwork of state and federal aid programs would be based on a small prior side job for an employer that earns her $40 a week in benefits.

“I don’t know how many of you can live on $160 a month,” Conboy told the crowd, adding that her $40 weekly benefit ended recently after a DLIR case adjudicator got involved.

“It can’t go on this way,” Conboy said. “We seem to be ignored and put off.”

Genna Weinstein, Local 5 president, appealed to lawmakers for help. “No one’s listening to workers,” she said at the Capitol. “We need the politicians to hear the workers.”

Sen. Maile Shimabukuro (D, Nanakuli-Waianae-Makaha) told demonstrators that they are rightfully demanding help.

“I hear your frustration, and my heart just bleeds for all these people that are put in a situation through no fault of their own,” she said.

Shimabukuro introduced Senate Bill 901 at the Legislature to require that DLIR open at least one office in each county for claimants to receive in-person assistance.

The bill also would require DLIR to boost unemployment claim processing, enlist state library workers to help the unemployed file claims on public computers at libraries, and impose a six-month deadline to finish an ongoing DLIR computer system upgrade.

SB 901 and a copy, House Bill 634 introduced by Rep. Cedric Gates (D, Waianae-Makaha), have not received a hearing since they were introduced Jan. 25.

Abercrombie encouraged the crowd to keep clamoring for respect and living wages.

Joli Tokusato, a Local 5 member, also tried to keep up the spirits of displaced workers despite locked doors at Hawaii unemployment offices.

“Don’t give up,” she implored.