Posted on: Wednesday, March 28, 2001

Royal Lahaina Resort, union reach tentative deal

By Frank Cho
Advertiser Staff Writer

The union representing about 300 hotel workers on Maui has reached a tentative labor agreement with the Royal Lahaina Resort, ending 10 months of sometimes bitter negotiations.

The new agreement says that workers will split a $50,000 bonus up front, followed by a 16 percent increase in wages over the next three years.

The agreement is still subject to a ratification vote, which has not been scheduled.

The contract, which runs until Sept. 20, 2003, includes a 50 percent increase in tips for restaurant waiters, a 25 percent increase in tips for luau waiters, similar raises for bellmen and housekeepers and no loss in medical benefits.

"This is a great victory for Royal Lahaina employees. They stuck together through a long, hard fight and came out with a great contract," said Esubio Lapenia, president of the International Longshore Warehouse Union Local 142, which represented the workers.

The Royal Lahaina Resort is owned by Ed Hogan, founder and chairman of Pleasant Travel Service. Hogan also runs wholesale tour companies, including Pleasant Hawaiian Holidays. Company officials were not available for comment today.

During the tourism slump of the mid-1990s, the hotel had won concessions from the union to help it cut costs and keep operating.

It put Royal Lahaina workers near the bottom of Maui's hotel industry in terms of pay, Lapenia said.

But after coming off a record year for visitor arrivals in 2000, hotel workers said they wanted a bigger share of profits.

The union had sought $15.33 an hour for workers, matching the average wage at the Hyatt Regency Maui in Ka'anapali.

Today's agreement gives them about $15 an hour.

"We are thrilled," said Camilla Lanse, a housekeeper at the Royal Lahaina. "It's too bad it took such a long fight, but we finally got the wages we deserve."

Negotiations between the union and the Royal Lahaina have been ongoing since the contract expired last May. Union members voted Feb. 2 to suspend the contract and had picketed the hotel intermittently since then.

Workers have filed more than 100 labor grievances against the hotel in the past year and the union has filed five separate charges with the National Labor Relations Board, charging several violations including a refusal to negotiate in good faith and unilateral increases in the workload without negotiations.

Lapenia said some of those charges may be dropped, but investigations into others are expected to continue.