Honolulu Record, August 19, 1948, vol. 1 no. 2, p. 5
AFL and independent utility unions moved in and out of emergency fact finding this week, with CIO unions serving a strike notice and gaining wage increases for its members.
Hawaiian Electric Dispute
The appointment of an emergency fact finding board headed by Newton R. Holcomb as chairman with C. C. Cadagan and Solomon Aki as members was recently announced by the governor in the Hawaiian Electric-International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 1260 dispute following failure of a mediation board to settle the trouble. The company contends that the main issue in dispute is the union shop, while the union insists that wage increases also figure in the pilikia.
Rutledge Blasts Factfinder Parks
The Transit Workers Union of Hawaii (Ind.) moved out of the emergency fact finding stage with the release of a report of the board headed by Judge John Parks which said: . The fact finding sessions were highlighted by a blast against chairman Parks by Arthur R. Rutledge, business representative of the union, as being biased and unfair. The union representative asked that the chairman disqualify himself. In answer to the report of the emergency fact-finding board Rutledge said Tuesday evening that the "prejudiced" report makes strike "mandatory" at midnight Aug. 22. Rutledge said the strike could be avoided if the Governor appoints another board "which will deal fairly with the issues," if some other suggestion is made by the Governor, or if union membership voted not to strike at this time. Meanwhile, IBEW Local 1357's dispute with the Mutual Telephone Company over work shifts is still in the mediation stage.
Love's Get Strike Notice
While strikes in the utility companies were staved off by emergency boards, ILWU Local 150 served a strike notice on the Love's Biscuit and Bread Co. with the territorial department of labor. The strike notice followed the failure of the union and the company to get together on wages and job classification, reopened for discussion on June 1 of this year. Ernest Arena, president of the Local, indicated that no date for the strike has been set although "the negotiating committee will call a strike in the near future" if negotiations are not resolved.
Public Workers
The United Public Workers, a CIO union, recently announced six cents per hour increase for 200 per diem workers in the county of Hawaii. The increase became effective on August 4 by a unanimous vote of the board of supervisors after Henry Epstein, executive secretary of the local, presented charts to show that the per diem workers' pay was not being computed properly. In addition to this increase, Mr. Epstein points out that the board has voted to have a four-man negotiating committee meet with the union to settle the question of back pay—the first time in the history of Hawaiian government that employer-employee relations have been established in this fashion, according to Mr. Epstein. Most of the 200 workers are members of the UPWA.
Culinary and Service Workers
An "Employees', Patients" and Citizens' Committee For Fair and Equal Treatment" is circulating petitions urging "the proper authorities to provide a twenty-five dollar increase in the monthly wages for the employees of the Leahi Hospital." Employees of the Hospital are members of the Culinary and Service Workers Union, shoreside branch of the National Union of Marine Cooks and Stewards (CIO).