Guests No Longer Make Own Beds as Hawaii Hotels Settle Strike

A monthlong strike that left some hotel guests making their own beds ended Saturday when negotiators for workers at 11 Hawaii hotels agreed to a tentative five-year contract.

Terms of the deal between Local 5 of the Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees and the Council of Hawaii Hotels were not revealed, but the union called it an improvement over a pact approved at one big hotel last week.

The strike by 7,500 employees affected about a fourth of the 37,000 hotel rooms in Waikiki, the state’s tourist capital, and about 1 in 7 of the state’s total hotel rooms.

The tentative accord was announced Saturday by union and management representatives, Gov. John Waihee and federal mediator Frank Schoeppel.

The union achieved its main goal of bringing pay in line with that of mainland hotel workers, said union spokesman Roderick Rodriguez.

The union scheduled a membership meeting for today to discuss the settlement and procedures for ratification. But members were told they did not need to wait for formal ratification and could return to work.

The deal was said to be similar to one approved by workers at the Hawaiian Regent Hotel on Friday.

That pact brought pay hikes of 7% the first year and 6% the following four years for non-tipped workers. Tipped workers at the Regent received a 20-cent-an-hour pay raise the first year, 15-cent-an-hour increases the next three years and a 20-cent-an-hour increase in the final year.

Hotel workers’ union leader Tony Rutledge said the tentative agreement would add about 40 cents per hour across the board to the one approved at the Regent.

Salaries under the old contract range from an average of $3.85 an hour for bellhops to an average of $11.04 an hour for cooks.