Amfac, union agree on closure payoffs

Amfac Sugar Kauai’s 400 workers at the Kekaha and Lihu’e operations have

approved a closure agreement between the company and their union.

In what

amounted to final negotiations between the International Longshore and

Warehouse Union (ILWU) and Amfac, the union had little or no leverage for

pushing its positions. A majority of the employees will no longer work for the

sugar plantation in just eight days.

Instead, the union appealed for

compassion for the men and women who gave the best years of their lives and

much more in efforts to keep the company going, said Clayton Dela Cruz, ILWU

Kaua’i division director.

The agreement was approved by workers over the

last two weeks, during what were also likely the final stop-work meetings in

the 100-year history of both the former Lihu’e Plantation and Kekaha Sugar

operations.

The closure agreement was approved, Dela Cruz said, because the

union was able to secure from Amfac “enhanced” retirement, pension and medical

benefits.

Employees will be given cash which they can either pocket or use

to extend medical benefits for themselves and their families for six months

from the Nov. 17 announced closure date, he said.

In 1998, workers took 10

percent wage cuts, with the alternative being the premature end of Amfac

operations on the island.

Earlier, Amfac/JMB Hawai’i president Gary Grottke

said he had given his personal assurances to workers that their final severance

packages would be based on wages they earned before making those wage and

benefit concessions in order to buy the company two more years of

life.

Dela Cruz confirmed what Grottke told The Garden Island earlier this

month: That a majority of the 386 bargaining-unit employees would see next

Friday as their last day of plantation employment.

Some will stay on to run

the Lihu’e mill power plant, which supplies the island with over 13 percent of

its electricity. Other mechanics will maintain plantation vehicles until the

vehicles can be sold at auction, Dela Cruz said yesterday.

The severance

package will pay each laid-off worker a set dollar figure for every year he or

she worked at the plantation. That set amount, which Dela Cruz did not divulge,

is greater than the figure that existed in the previous, expired

contract.

Workers will also be paid for any accumulated vacation leave

time. An early-pension provision will allow workers to begin dipping into the

retirement savings once they reach age 60, Dela Cruz explained.

The union

also encouraged workers to seek financial advice about the best ways to avoid

tax liabilities on the money they’ll receive as some of the last workers at

Amfac.

A job fair that at least 25 employers with jobs to offer will attend

– sponsored by the company, union, county and state governments and other

entities – is today from 3 to 8 p.m. at Kaua’i War Memorial Convention

Hall.

Across from the hall on Hardy Street, at the ILWU Local 142 office,

the Kaua’i Food Bank will be handing out food baskets to Amfac workers.

Vouchers for the food were passed out at the stop-work meetings and are

required to take the food home.

Those who did not receive the vouchers can

call the ILWU office at 245-3374, said Dela Cruz.

Staff Writer Paul C.

Curtis can be reached at pcurtis@pulitzer.net or 245-3681 (ext. 224).