Hilton Hawaiian Village landscapers fight subcontracting, win jobs back

There are only 17 workers taking care of landscaping at the Hilton Hawaiian Village, a 22-acre property. Workers let the Union know that work is being subcontracted. They filed a grievance, and the pressure was enough to get management to bring the remaining 9 workers back and stop the subcontracting.

Watch the video of organizer Lani Meniano with Hilton Hawaiian Village worker Todd Martin. Read the full transcript below:

LANI: Good morning, Todd! How are you doing today?

TODD: Good morning, Lani! Working hard, but it’s good to be working. And it’s Aloha Friday!

LANI: Oh yeah, good to hear. So, Todd, I just want to ask you: How do you feel now that all of you guys are back? I know you guys stepped up. 8 of you stepped up to file a grievance, let the Union know that some of your other guys’ job are being subcontracted. So, and now I know you’ve been asking for more people to help you, because you’re the only one working at the time share. So now everybody’s back. So how do you feel now?

TODD: First of all, thank you to Lani and to Local 5—especially Lani for helping us so much [with the process for grievance. Because we don’t really know how to do that stuff. So having you here on property all the time, get it going, get it going the proper way. And it worked! It’s not quite done yet. Still have to do a little bit more, but once they’re done, we can take staff back to our area. Back to Union workers. It’s good to have all of our coworkers back. It’s been a long, long year

LANI: So I went around the property, and it’s nice and clean. So beautiful, so that’s good.

TODD: Thank you

LANI: Thank you!

TODD: Salamat!

(video cuts to a crowd of Hilton Hawaiian Village landscaping workers)

CROWD: Thank you!