Hotel fry cook Rod Kane has been reading about the high revenues and room rates Hawai'i's hotel industry is enjoying, and he wants his share.

"If we can get a piece of that big pie, then I'm sure a lot of us will be happy," said the Sheraton Princess Kaiulani employee.

Kane and about 6,400 other union workers at 10 Honolulu hotels will be negotiating new contracts this summer. The negotiations, the first since 2002, promise to be more intense this year.

With tourist arrivals and room rates at record levels, the stakes are higher than in previous contract negotiations. The hotel workers union, Unite Here Local 5, has also joined with union workers across North America to boost their clout. Contracts covering nearly 60,000 hotel workers in the U.S. and Canada expire this year.

The result is likely to be a strong push from the union for higher wages and benefits. Hotels will be cautious about rising expenses.

Hotels say they have provided employees with good wages and benefits, and are prepared to continue offering fair packages during the upcoming round of contract talks.

"There's no doubt ... that we've had a good year," said Gary Seibert, area vice president and managing director of Hilton Hawaii. "And it is something we have to preserve for the future ... We have to make sure that we continue to service our guests in the best possible fashion. ... And we also want to be fair to our team members and employees."

EARNINGS AS LEVERAGE

The economic climate this year is much better than during the last contract talks in 2002. Hawai'i's hotel industry brought in a record $3 billion in revenue last year, a welcome boost following downturns from Sept. 11, SARS and the Iraq war. Statewide room rates have been setting records.

Company filings show first-quarter net income for Hilton Hotels Corp. grew 63 percent to $104 million. Last year Marriott International Inc. earned $669 million, the highest since at least 1997, and Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. earned $422 million, the most since 1998.

The high earnings will be used by union negotiators to argue for increased pay and benefits. Hotels may argue that tourism is volatile and that the last two years of growth follow substantial slumps in the industry.

Both sides would rather settle contracts without a strike, which could give Hawai'i's No. 1 industry another black eye in a year already damaged by rain, floods and sewage spills.

"I think everybody in the industry is concerned about (a strike), no question," said Hawaii Tourism Authority president and CEO Rex Johnson.

Gauging the impact of a strike is difficult because it depends on factors like the length of the disruption, said Leroy Laney, professor of economics and finance at Hawai'i Pacific University.

"If something is settled relatively quickly, it has a very minor passing influence and probably doesn't show up in the yearly numbers in any discernable way at all," he said. "But if it were to extend for some period of time, then it might."

Laney said there are a lot worse things that could happen to tourism in Hawai'i than a hotel strike. "An outbreak of bird flu or something like that would be far more devastating, or another 9/11 situation," he said.

Unite Here general president Bruce Raynor, visiting Hawai'i recently for a rally kicking off the union's international campaign, said 2006 is the "largest collective bargaining year in the history of the hotel industry."

"Workers in Local 5 and Unite Here affiliates across North America are joining hands and are saying to the hotel industry, 'We are bigger than you, we are stronger than you, we insist that you share your record profits with the workers that make this industry successful,' " Raynor said.

Contracts expire on June 30 for nine O'ahu hotels, including the four Sheraton properties in Waikiki, the Hilton Hawaiian Village Beach Resort & Spa, Hyatt Regency Waikiki Resort & Spa, Waikiki Beach Marriott Resort & Spa, Kahala Hotel & Resort and Renaissance Ilikai Waikiki Hotel. A contract for Ala Moana Hotel employees expires May 31.

'MONEY IS POWER'

Local 5 will begin negotiations in the middle of this month with the four Waikiki Sheraton hotels: the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, Sheraton Moana Surfrider, Sheraton Princess Kaiulani Hotel and the Sheraton Waikiki Hotel. No talks have yet been scheduled with the other hotels.

The Hyatt and the Waikiki Beach Marriott are seeking to form a multi-employer negotiating group, which needs to be agreed to by Local 5. The group originally was to include Hilton, but Local 5 officials have said they won't recognize any multi-employer group that includes Hilton. Among other things, the union has said it's concerned with Hilton's role in the 2004 lockout of workers in San Francisco.

Michael Jokovich, general manager of Hyatt Regency Waikiki Resort & Spa, said the hotel looks forward "to providing a good wage and benefits package." He said he doesn't know what the union requests will be yet, "but we're prepared to follow through, and certainly through the good times and bad times, we as hotel operators have provided very good wage and benefit packages, and we recognize the fact that tourism is on the upswing in Hawai'i."

Just because hotels are making money doesn't necessarily put the union in a better bargaining position, said Lawrence Boyd, labor economist with the Center for Labor Education and Research at the University of Hawai'i-West O'ahu.

"Yes, they have lots of money and there should not be a problem with financial issues right now," he said. But on the other hand, "money is power."

Neither the hotels nor Local 5 are disclosing specifics on what they want for the 2006 contracts because negotiations haven't started yet.

Local 5's general bargaining goals include wage parity with hotel workers in New York. Union officials say Waikiki housekeepers earn an average of $14 an hour while their New York counterparts make about $20 an hour.

Murray Towill, president of the Hawai'i Hotel & Lodging Association, has said the average annual wage for a Hawai'i hotel industry worker in 2004 was $33,500, among the highest in the nation.

'HURTING ON THE JOB'

But Local 5 officials say Hawai'i also ranks among the most costly places to live in the nation and that many members work more than one job.

Ricky Ornellas, an assistant pantry worker at Hilton, works two jobs to help support his family. He works in Waikiki from the afternoon to night, then drives to Ko Olina to do a graveyard shift. He makes about $16.50 an hour.

"Tourism is the No. 1 industry, and yet we don't get paid that well ... with the cost of living in Hawai'i being so high," said Ornellas, who also wants medical benefits preserved.

Kane, the Sheraton fry cook, said both he and his wife — who is also in the hotel industry — work two jobs to make ends meet.

The Hawai'i union is also seeking, among other things, "reasonable" workload standards, protection against condo and timeshare conversion and ending the subcontracting of hotel jobs.

Housekeepers' complaints focus largely on increased workloads from added guest room amenities like heavy mattresses, comforters stuffed in duvet covers, extra pillows and coffee makers. They're seeking a reduction in the number of rooms they must clean and complain of work-related injuries because of the extra workload.

Maria Salantes, a housekeeper at Hilton for 24 years, said it's a struggle to clean the required 16 rooms with the extra amenities. She said her back and shoulders hurt when she's working and that some co-workers come to work with pain-relieving patches on their backs.

"We're hurting on the job now," she said.

Hotels have said they are willing to discuss these issues. Some have pointed to company initiatives like "green" programs that allow guests to indicate if there's no need to change linens or towels, which can reduce the workload.

But moreover, hotels are concerned Local 5 will bring to the bargaining table Unite Here's national agenda, which includes growing the union membership.

"It's been reported in the press that they may be bringing some national issues to Hawai'i," said Hyatt's Jokovich. "In the past, the union has always negotiated with us on local issues, and we would like to keep it local as opposed to the national agenda that may be out there. This is Hawai'i, and certainly we have been successful for many many years in satisfying our members."

Local 5 officials point out that many of the hotels are owned by national or international corporations. They said their bargaining initiatives and goals are local and that they cannot bargain for other union chapters. But they've made it no secret that they also want to grow the union.

"At the end of the day, what's most important to us is this industry is growing by leaps and bounds, and it is growing without providing an avenue for growth for workers to join the union or get a better package," said Local 5 leader Eric Gill. "So we are anxious to address that."

Reach Lynda Arakawa at larakawa@honoluluadvertiser.com.