Teamsters set to strike two concrete producers

By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer

The Hawai'i Teamsters and Allied Workers union has given notice that it will strike two of Hawai'i's largest concrete producers this week, beginning with Ameron Hawaii's Campbell Industrial Park site at one minute after midnight Friday.

Union officials then plan to strike Hawaiian Cement's Halawa plant at 12:01 a.m. Saturday, Teamsters president Mel Kahele said today.

The potential strike, which could shut down concrete plants and idle concrete trucks, comes just as Hawai'i's construction industry is preparing for an unprecedented boom in military projects over the next 10 years.

"Obviously we don't want a strike, especially coming off of so many years of what I would almost call a depression in the construction industry," said Bruce Coppa, executive director of the Pacific Resource Partnership, which works with Hawai'i carpenters union and its union contractors. "Now that we're seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, this is a shame. It's going to end and the only thing that's going to come out of it is that both sides will walk away with neither side getting all that they wanted."

Neither Ameron nor Hawaiian Cement officials returned telephone calls to The Advertiser today.

Kahele said the issues are the same at both companies: sick leave and medical co-payments.

Ameron, which employs about 160 Teamsters workers, wants employees to pay 30 percent of their medical co-payments, up from 20 percent, Kahele said. Hawaiian Cement wants the 70 Teamsters members to pay 20 percent of their medical co-pay, Kahele said.

The union also wants to discuss reinstituting paid sick days at Ameron, which the company eliminated three years ago, Kahele said. Hawaiian Cement wants to reduce the amount of sick days by 50 percent, he said.

"We're willing to sit down and talk about these items but we haven't gotten nowhere," Kahele said. Union officials today were unsuccessfully trying to arrange meetings with both companies, he said.

Teamsters workers at the top of the pay scale currently earn $25 an hour, Kahele said, and wages are a negotiating point. But sick leave and medical co-payments are the unions' top issues in the negotiations, he said.