The September 11th attack
Tourism crisis jolts unions
| • | Work-sharing faces opposition |
By Susan Hooper
Advertiser Staff Writer
The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks brought Hawai'i an economic crisis unprecedented in its swiftness and its intensity.
Nearly five weeks after the tragedy, the state's tourism industry is staring at millions of dollars in lost revenue and more than 13,000 people with new unemployment claims. The sort of woeful economic indicators that normally would accumulate over months of hard times have piled up in the economic blink of an eye, leaving both workers and their employers struggling to cope.
Among those scrambling to map out the changed landscape have been the state's many tourism-related labor unions. As the ground in workplaces statewide has shifted, hotel and airline union leaders have put in long days reviewing contracts and meeting with management to craft temporary agreements that will help firms stay in business while preserving labor protections.
The crisis comes at a pivotal time for Hawai'i's unions. In the months before the attacks, the state's public- and private-sector unions were forging new alliances and gaining momentum in strength, unity and public support. The growing solidarity among union members was spurred in part by Hawai'i's nascent economic recovery last year after nearly a decade of stagnation. With employers more profitable, workers had a better chance of winning requests for pay and benefit increases.
On the morning of Sept. 11, however, the increasingly promising future for Hawai'i's unions suddenly became more uncertain. The new global fear of flying translated into rows of empty airline seats, as well as floors of empty hotel rooms statewide. And with employers tallying huge deficits rather than moderate gains, the unions have lost some of their power to ask for more. Instead, they are steeling themselves for what could be a prolonged period of settling for less.
"It's no question that businesses will be very conservative in spending habits and hiring habits as a result of the economic uncertainty that's going on," said Tim Ho, president of the Hawai'i Employers Council, which represents more than 700 union and nonunion businesses.
"It would be clear to me that those businesses who are feeling the greatest impact will engage their unions to see that relief can be provided — to try to work out financial terms to ensure that those organizations survive for the future," he said. "I think it will be based on those kinds of conditions. And unions will respond. They won't want to see jobs go by the wayside."
For their part, union leaders say they are working closely with employers affected by the crisis. Yet at the same time, they are prepared to stand their ground to protect their members.
"We've already had several meetings with the management people," said Eric Gill, financial secretary-treasurer with Local 5 of the Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees Union, which counts 8,400 hotel workers among its 10,710 members.
"Some companies, but not all, have made some proposals to amend the contract," Gill said. "We haven't agreed to those, although we are discussing them. We're basically addressing this as a problem-solving thing: They have their proposals and we have ours to address the problems related to the low occupancy and the attempt to keep everybody employed and covered by the medical coverage."
Union concerns include work-sharing and the sense that jobs are not being restored, even though occupancy levels in some hotels have risen substantially since the week following the attacks.
"...We're willing to do what we have to do (to work with the hotels)," Gill said. "On the other hand, we want to make sure that management shoulders their share of their responsibility as well. The solution is not simply changing the contract. The contract is set up to handle peaks and valleys.... Right now the hotels are running lower than we would expect at this time of year, but not so low that it's outside the realm of what the contract is set up to handle."
Richard Rand, a Honolulu labor lawyer whose clients include several tourism industry companies, said he believes that both labor and management realize the current crisis is dramatically different from previous tourism slowdowns.
Labor issues arising from the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks inevitably will be present in talks for any union contracts coming up this year and next, he said. And those contracts may not necessarily be limited to the tourism industry.
But Rand said he doubts that the current crisis will rewrite the rules of contract negotiations.
"I think you always in negotiations have to deal with both long-term issues and the shorter term," he said. "If the company has had a really good year, the unions tend to come in and say, 'You had a good year; we were partners in your success; we want to participate.' If it was not a good year, the company asks for concessions. That has happened in every major industry in the state at one time or another."
One labor analyst has suggested that, if Hawai'i labor and management representatives need an example of cooperation in crisis, they should look to the unusual spirit that has prevailed in Washington since Sept. 11.
"You can model this on the bipartisan coalition that exists now between Congress and the administration (of Presiden Bush), on the give and take that exists there," said Lawrence Boyd, a labor economist with the Center for Labor Education and Research at the University of Hawai'i-West O'ahu.
But if labor and management fail to work together now, Boyd said, the consequences likely will be dire.
"In general," he said, "if people are forced to make bad decisions or feel that pressure rather than making good decisions, the end result will be bad for the industry."
