Local Man Target of Union Attack

Union negotiations are threatening to sully paradise for Ed Hogan, a local philanthropist who has built his fortune turning millions of Americans on to the Hawaiian Islands over the past four decades.

This week the International Longshore and Warehouse Union sent at least 3,500 mailers attacking Hogan to retirees and travel agents across Southern California, primarily in Ventura and Los Angeles counties.

The union represents 282 workers at Hogan’s Royal Lahaina Resort on Maui and is in negotiations to renew its employees’ contract, which expired in May.

The mail pieces allege the 73-year-old--who is underwriting a $5-million garden in Thousand Oaks that will be privately run but open free to the public--has cut his employees’ retirement benefits and pays such low wages that his workers need food stamps.

Hogan, a self-made multimillionaire who is building a 17,000-square-foot chateau in Lake Sherwood, dismissed the mailers as a smear campaign.

“The bigger you get, the more people try to spotlight you and take you on,” said the founder of Pleasant Holidays.

Hogan has built the company into the largest wholesaler of Hawaiian vacations in the country. Company spokesman Ken Phillips called the union campaign unwarranted, misleading and false.

“We’re just kind of baffled by the whole thing at this point,” he said.

Phillips acknowledged the company has temporarily ceased contributions to the employee pension fund, but said other hotels have done the same. Pleasant Holidays made that decision because the fund had performed so well it was in danger of being over-funded, something Phillips said would jeopardize the fund’s stability.

The company has always intended to resume contributions when the pension fund leveled off, Phillips said.

Josh Kamensky, a Los Angeles-based researcher for the union, said Hogan should be as generous to his workers as he is to strangers. Hogan’s family has established a $100-million trust for educational and cultural programs nationwide. Another Hogan charity provides free airplane rides to critically ill children who can’t otherwise afford to fly back and forth for medical care.

Meanwhile, Kamensky said, Hawaii is such an expensive place to live that full-time housekeepers can qualify for food stamps on the $11.24 an hour they earn at the hotel. Cooks are paid from $12.70 to $17 an hour based on experience, about $2,000 less per year than at a competing hotel, he said.

The union declined to say specifically what type of raises or benefit increases employees are seeking.