Email our state leaders: what’s your plan to help workers?

Labor Day is supposed to commemorate workers and the American labor movement. Yet on this day, PEUC benefits will expire for thousands of Hawaii workers who are still furloughed and will now receive hundreds of dollars less per week from unemployment.

The State of Hawaii knew these benefits would expire. They also allowed the eviction moratorium to expire. What is the state’s plan to help workers?

As COVID cases spike and hotel occupancy drops, many workers are back on unemployment. Many more have not been called back to work since March 2020. Employers have done little to take care of their workers since the start of the pandemic.

In the hospitality industry, only 67% of Local 5 members are back to work. The hotel industry is cutting guest services so that fewer workers return to work.

In the healthcare industry, Kaiser Permanente is proposing a destructive wage system and ignoring short staffing issues, after announcing earlier this year that they are outsourcing dozens of local jobs to the mainland and attempting to shut down departments in Wailuku clinic last year.

Fill out the form below to send an email to Governor David Ige, Speaker of the House Scott Saiki, and Senate President Ron Kouchi. Tell them: fund additional unemployment benefits, and release a detailed plan on how the State will take care of workers—especially as COVID cases increase, hotel occupancy plummets, and employers use the pandemic to cut jobs.