Hawaiian Cement-Teamsters negotiations collapse

By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer

Contract talks broke off last night between striking Teamsters and Hawaiian Cement after a failed attempt to agree on some of the less touchy issues in O'ahu's 34-day-old concrete strike.

Negotiators met face-to-face at the Teamsters Kalihi headquarters and swapped proposals, but walked away from the bargaining table about five hours after the talks began. No new sessions are scheduled.

The Hawai'i Teamsters and Allied Workers Union Local 996, however, is scheduled to resume contract talks with Hawai'i's other major concrete company, Ameron Hawai'i, at 4 p.m. tomorrow.

Michael Coad, Hawaiian Cement's vice president, entered the talks optimistic that progress would be made by avoiding the issue of employee contributions to their medical plans.

Instead, Coad left the talks shortly after 7 p.m., saying: "I'm sorry to report that we were unable to reach agreement this evening. It was for me a very frustrating evening. The company and the union exchanged proposals and unfortunately there was not much agreement on the subjects we discussed tonight. I'm hoping that after we sleep on each other's proposals, there may be reason or justification for getting together again."

Coad also said: "We started the evening a little optimistic, but as it turned out our proposals were rejected. We just need to keep trying and working at this."

Bill Schneider, senior vice president of Hawaiian Cement's parent company, the North Dakota-based Knife River Corp., sat in on last night's talks. Teamsters President Mel Kahele said Schneider "pulled the plug" on the negotiations.

"In my opinion, he misled and the company misled all of the peoples that's been affected ... into believing the strike would end sometime tonight," Kahele said.

"It's sad because a lot of people have been affected, and we hope the company realizes that our proposal was to not only meet our demands but also their demands.

"We're actually surprised with the company's position in walking off the bargaining table. We had a package for the company and apparently it was to settle the strike. And actually the company just decided to pull the plug and walking off the bargaining table."

The strike has stalled at least $400 million worth of construction projects on O'ahu, according to preliminary results of a survey conducted by the Building Industry Association-Hawai'i.

Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8085.