It's easy to understand the roots of Hawai'i's labor movement. Plantation workers from the late 1800s through the first three decades of the 20th century were treated like slaves.
Poorly paid, disciplined with whips and forced to live in unsanitary housing, the immigrant laborers were bound by contracts that dictated nearly every aspect of their lives. They were told where and when to do nearly everything, including when it was time to go to sleep.
By the end of the 19th century, when the arrival of U.S. law made the restrictive plantation contracts illegal, labor unrest was on the rise. Although there had been 50 labor disturbances since the first foreign workers arrived in 1852, workers were emboldened by the new U.S. laws. Thousands simply walked off the job as soon as they could, leaving the plantations and Hawai'i forever.
But as the plantations continued to recruit new labor in the first decade of the 20th century, especially from the Philippines, unrest increased. In 1900 alone, there were 25 strikes. Most ended in defeat of the laborers.
A 1909 dispute over unequal pay among various immigrant groups led to the first plantation-related labor union. It waged a three-month strike against six sugar plantations that ended in defeat.
Retribution against the strikers was harsh.
At a plantation in Kahuku, 600 were evicted. They walked to Honolulu, a two-day march over the Pali. At a Waipahu plantation, strikers were ordered back to work at gunpoint.
The next major strike occurred in 1920, when more than 8,300 Filipino and Japanese workers united to close down plantations.
And again, the plantations leaned hard on the striking workers, evicting them from company houses. At one point, more than 12,000 people were homeless.
It ended after five months, and many of the Japanese workers were not hired back. Union leaders, blacklisted, found themselves unemployable at other plantations.
But for others, pay increased $3 a month.
Four years later, workers united again. But the 1924 strike, which lasted eight months, was unlike any that had gone before.
Before it was over, 20 people had been killed during a riot.
More than 3,000 workers struck on four islands, beginning on Kaua'i in April 1924. They sought an increase in pay and a reduction of the workday to eight hours.
The strike turned bloody in September when workers on Kaua'i armed themselves and captured two strikebreakers in Hanapepe. In the riot that resulted, 16 Filipino strikers and four policemen were killed. Scores were injured. The Island labor movement was slowed, but only temporarily.
