Posted on: Saturday, June 16, 2001

Maui hotel union dropped

By Glenn Scott
Advertiser Staff Writer

Workers at the Outrigger Wailea Resort voted this week to oust the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, Local 142. The union had represented the workers since June 1998. Advertiser library photo

Employees of the Outrigger Wailea Resort on Maui have taken the unusual move of voting out union representation.

By a 208-70 count, workers voted Thursday in an election supervised by the National Labor Relations Board to end representation by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, Local 142. The union had represented the workers since June 1998.

The vote came slightly more than two years after Honolulu-based Outrigger Hotels & Resorts, a chain with few union labor contracts, purchased the former Aston Wailea Resort in February 1999 and invested $25 million in renovations.

Outrigger managers also made another early commitment, giving back to workers credit for years of past service that Aston management had rejected.

Bill Brown, Outrigger's senior vice president for human resources and planning, said yesterday that Outrigger chose to honor the seniority of the workers as part of a corporate culture that values a family atmosphere. Many of those employees, he said, had been with the property for many years and some since it opened in 1976 as the Maui Inter-continental.

"We wanted to hit it off well with everyone on the property," he said, "and it's worked out that way."

The decertification was no simple process. According to legal documents, Outrigger began formal contract negotiations with the ILWU in April 1999. By December, employees petitioned the company, saying that a majority wanted to withdraw from the union.

However, NLRB representatives blocked efforts to hold an election, maintaining that Outrigger, as a new employer, had not bargained for a reasonable period and an interruption could harm the collective bargaining process. NLRB lawyers simultaneously won an administrative law hearing and a U.S. District Court injunction requiring Outrigger to keep negotiating with the union.

After more bargaining, talks reached a stalemate in December 2000. Employees petitioned the hotel a second time in February 2001, saying a majority wanted to drop union representation. When Outrigger sought an election, the NLRB dropped its opposition and conducted the election Thursday.

ILWU officials on Maui and O'ahu were unavailable yesterday for comment.

Outrigger Hotels & Resorts operates 30 hotels and resort condominiums on the Islands. None of its Outrigger and Ohana brand properties in Waikiki involves organized labor contracts.

Brown said the company inherited union operations when it acquired three condominium properties on Maui and the Waikoloa Beach Hotel on the Big Island. He said the company has good relationships with those bargaining units.

Brown also said NLRB investigators scrutinized Outrigger's role to ensure there was no management interference in the employees' decision-making.

Lawyers familiar with the Wailea election said decertification votes involving such large units are rare in Hawai'i. According to NLRB records, the vote was the only one of its kind so far this year.