"How can I pay the rent?" Ibarra asked as he stood among freshly poured concrete slabs at the Ocean Pointe housing development in 'Ewa Beach.

Kevin Pena, president of Foundations Hawaii Inc., had just told Ibarra and about 20 of his fellow masons that they will be laid off for a week because of the threatened strike by concrete workers.

Already, Ibarra is late in paying his rent — $700 a month — and other bills. Last month, he brought home smaller paychecks because he couldn't work on the days that O'ahu was hit with heavy rain.

"Now this. So I don't know what to do," said Ibarra. "Unemployment is a little bit of money, and I don't know how long we can live like that."

Ibarra is one of more than 900 construction workers who economists estimate could be laid off because of the interruption in concrete deliveries.

June Pascua's family depends on his take-home pay of $850 a week. His wife doesn't work, and he has three kids to feed.

"Basically, the cement is our bread and butter. It pays the bills," said Pascua, a 35-year-old foreman who lives in Waipahu and works at Ocean Pointe with Ibarra.

Two of Pascua's paychecks cover his mortgage, and he's already had to do side jobs on the weekends to make ends meet.

"Without this job, we are going to be struggling," he said.

The disruptions in concrete delivery also may knock the 40-story Hokua condominium project on Ala Moana off schedule.

Concrete pouring was scheduled for tomorrow at the project. Now, Albert C. Kobayashi Inc., the general contractor, is not sure if that will happen.

Starza Barino, a 29-year-old iron worker and an apprentice for the Associated Steel Workers Ltd., has been laying rebar — a reinforcing bar used to increase the tensile strength of concrete — to support the first floor of the Hokua condo. If they don't pour the concrete for that floor, he can't move to the next level and will be out of a job.

Barino worries more about lost hours on the way to earning journeyman status than lost pay.

"This is my second 40-hour work week this year," Barino said. "I really want to work on my hours."

As an apprentice he makes $14 an hour, but once he has worked long enough to be a journeyman, he'll double his wages.

Sitting in the back of a truck while eating pork and beans and vienna sausage for lunch, William Salazar, an iron worker on the same project, said he hopes the strike won't last longer than a week.

If it does stretch beyond a week, Salazar, who has three children, said he will have to collect unemployment and look for side jobs.

"That is the only compensation we have," he said.