ILWU joins in lawsuit for march at Ala Wai
| • | Bank meeting sees diminishing riot threat |
By James Gonser
Advertiser Staff Writer
A local labor union has joined with the American Civil Liberties Union in a lawsuit asking the federal court to allow protesters to march peacefully on the Ala Wai Canal promenade next to the Hawai'i Convention Center when the Asian Development Bank meets next month.
A hearing on the request for a temporary restraining order against city restrictions is set for next Thursday before U.S. District Judge David Ezra. According to protest groups, city regulations would force them onto the sidewalks across from the convention center.
Ezra Eusebio Lapenia, president of the 20,000-member International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 142, said the Asian Development Bank makes loans to countries where government leaders have a poor reputation for upholding labor rights.
The ILWU Local 142 is the second labor organization to support peaceful and lawful protests against the ADB during its meetings here the week of May 7. The Hawai'i State AFL-CIO — an umbrella labor organization made up of individual unions — earlier issued a statement opposing the ADB and describing the bank as "an unaccountable international institution that makes loans benefiting the rich that are paid by the poor."
ACLU legal director Brent White said the ILWU's joining the suit shows that the police department is wrong in claiming that individuals opposed to the ADB are outsiders.
But City Corporation Counsel David Arakawa has said that government officials have been meeting weekly with the ACLU and that the city has no intention of curtailing free speech.
Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Local 5, AFL-CIO, held a Waikiki march Tuesday to garner support for union members who are negotiating a new contract and could call a strike coinciding with the ADB conference.
Local 5 leader Tony Rutledge said the timing is coincidental.
"We have been going at if for over a year," Rutledge said. "We are trying to crank it up a little so the employer gets serious."
