BUSINESS BRIEFS
Big Island paper faces complaint
Advertiser Staff and News Services
The National Labor Relations Board has filed a complaint against Big Island newspaper Hawai'i Tribune-Herald alleging unfair labor practices, the Hawai'i Newspaper Guild announced yesterday.
The Guild said the newspaper has refused to provide information about the October 2005 firing of reporter Hunter Bishop, and the Guild contends refusing to disclose the reason for the firing is a violation of the National Labor Relations Act.
Bishop was a union shop steward and member of the Guild's Hilo bargaining committee at the time he was fired. The Guild represents about 50 employees of the Tribune-Herald. Tribune-Herald Editor David Bock declined comment on the complaint. A hearing on the complaint is scheduled for May 31 in Honolulu.
HAWAIIAN BEATS YEAR-AGO FIGURES
Hawaiian Airlines flew 514,143 passengers in March, up 2.3 percent from the same month a year earlier, the company announced yesterday.
The airline also recorded 568 million revenue passenger miles in March, up 5.1 percent from a year earlier. Available seat miles totaled 649 million for the month, up 3.4 percent from the previous year. Load factor was 87.5 percent, up from 86.1 percent from a year earlier.
WAL-MART BANK BID OPPOSED
WASHINGTON — Allies for once, a stream of officials from the banking industry, unions and consumer groups urged federal regulators yesterday to reject a bid by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to expand its empire into the banking business.
A company official, meanwhile, assured the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. that Wal-Mart had no plans to compete with community banks, including bank branches located within its megastores. The first day of the first-ever FDIC public hearings on a bank application drew a wave of opposition to the plans of the world's largest retailer.
