Amfac’s end ‘a sad day’

LIHU’E — The end of Amfac Sugar Kaua’i yesterday was much more than the demise

of a large plantation.

More than the end of an era, it hurt as much as

losing a relative, according to many lining the lawn of the Historic County

Building to witness the final Amfac canehaul truck convoy.

“It’s family,”

said Adam Carvalho, 71, who retired about a decade ago after devoting 48 years

to Amfac. Five generations of Carvalhos, including some of those 400 who lost

their jobs yesterday, worked for Amfac’s former Lihu’e Plantation

operation.

The last Carvalhos to work for Amfac were truck drivers and

heavy-equipment operators.

“This is our company,” said Carvalho, who was

among several retirees, their families, and hundreds of others who lined the

convoy route to pay their last respects to a dying family member.

Carvalho

worked every factory position known to the company during his years with LP,

was a mechanic and worked in the power plant and the cleaning plant as

well.

Albert Moura’s daughters recalled the late-night calls their father

received, with the person on the other end of the telephone asking if the

machinist Moura could come in and help repair down mill equipment.

He

always went, the daughters said, and was sometimes gone for 24 hours, came home

to catch an hour of sleep, then went right back to work his regular

shift.

“It’s a sad day,” a day he never thought would come, said Moura. He

worked for LP for 28 years after working for Kaua’i Pineapple for 20 years

before that.

“We saw the writing on the wall, but never thought this day

would come. I feel sad for those with (mortgage) notes to pay,” said Moura, 71,

imploring officials on Kaua’i to do everything they can to create meaningful,

long-term jobs that will help the terminated workers put food on their

tables.

Another woman, whose six brothers all lost their jobs when McBryde

Sugar closed down, said she would plant some sugarcane in her yard, so her

grandchildren and their children would know what cane looks like.

Both

Kaua’i County Council Chair Ron Kouchi and County Clerk Peter Nakamura

described the scene at the Historic County Building as “sad.”

Many in the

caravan don’t know what they’ll do for work today, and the uncertainties must

be among the hardest parts for the workers, Kouchi said.

The county did all

it could to help keep sugar alive, offering real property tax breaks for land

dedicated to agriculture for long periods of time, and lobbying in Washington

D.C. to keep sugar provisions in the Farm Bill.

Kouchi said he would

continue working with Gay & Robinson, now the island’s only remaining sugar

plantation.

Gini Kapali, director of the county Office of Economic

Development, said she felt “a warm spirit” as the convoy passed, one that was

saying, “We’re not going to give up.”

Lyle Tabata, who is uncertain how

much longer he would remain the on-island supervisor for all Amfac Sugar Kaua’i

operations — the main task now is keeping the power plant running — took

pictures of the convoy.

Hoku Rivera led the convoy of around 35 plantation

vehicles, many of the drivers with their spouses, girlfriends or other

significant ones in the cabs with them.

At the Historic County Building,

there were many teary eyes, and not just from those with plantation

ties.

Tears were flowing in the Eddie Hernandez household as well, as the

41-year-old truck driver who worked for 20 years in various positions for LP

worries most about continuing to make his mortgage payments.

During his

Amfac career, the Hanama’ulu resident, husband and father of four grown

children had been a seed cutter (his first job), worked in planting, and was a

machine operator.

“I feel bad,” he said. Today’s task: “Look for job. Still

yet, we need to find a job,” he said, speaking for most of his former

co-workers. “Have to pay the mortgage.”

On the trucks that made the final

trip around Lihu’e and Hanama’ulu, “Thank you” in several languages on handmade

signs were taped to the vehicles, and through the red dirt on a white panel

truck background, the words “It’s not the end of world yet” and “It’s the end”

were written on the same truck.

“Kind of sad. Not feeling too good,” said

Donald Engwer, 57, of Kapa’a, who worked for LP for 38 years. He has one month

of work left, helping keep the company’s for-sale 17,000 acres in good shape

until it is sold.

“I’m kind of concerned about the medical,” said Engwer, a

widower with two grown daughters. He saw the plantation survive two hurricanes,

and probably figured it would find a way to survive the low sugar prices and

low yields that were its deathblow.

The people, he’s certain, will survive.

“We have to move on.”

Amfac is not the first plantation to close, and

won’t be the last, he continued. When he started working for the plantation,

back in 1962 when he was 19 years old, it was a smart career move.

Engwer

has received one verbal job offer, but nothing concrete yet. Most of his LP

career was spent in the harvesting section.

One of his day-shift

co-workers, who did not want to be identified, saw yesterday as his last day of

employment. “From the parents to the kids,” he said about generations of

plantation workers. “The ending of a new beginning,” he said of yesterday. He

has a couple job offers, but hasn’t decided what he’ll do beginning

today.

During what was, for many of them, their last day of work together,

there was discussion of the “good old days,” but not much talk at all about how

management doing something different may have prolonged the life of the

plantation.

Mostly, it was remembering how it used to be, Engwer said.

“Everybody get something in their heart. They feel it, but they kept it to

themselves,” Engwer said of the pau-hana feelings going through workers heads

and hearts.

“At least we got a little back,” another worker said of the

final contract negotiated between Amfac and the International Longshore and

Warehouse Union (ILWU) that represented nearly all 400 workers who lost their

jobs yesterday.

Staff Writer Paul C. Curtis can be reached at

pcurtis@pulitzer.net or 245-3681 (ext. 224).

Staff Photo by Dennis

Fujimoto

CHRIS BABILA washes down his truck after bringing in the last load

of Westside sugar to the Lihu’e processing site. A caravan of trucks through

Hanama’ulu and Lihu’e signaled the end of Amfac sugar operations

yesterday.