For some, layoffs mean chores before returning to workforce BY PAUL C. CURTIS TGI Staff Writer LIHU’E — When the final truckload of cane rumbled across the scale at the Amfac Sugar Kaua’i cane-combining area near Isenberg Park, Amfac’s last
For some, layoffs mean chores before returning
to workforce
BY PAUL C.
CURTIS
TGI Staff Writer
LIHU’E — When the final truckload of cane
rumbled across the scale at the Amfac Sugar Kaua’i cane-combining area near
Isenberg Park, Amfac’s last harvesting superintendent, Howard Ramos, felt
nearly as much relief as sadness.
“Number 392,” Ramos reported, driven by
Francisco Garcia, who started with the plantation in 1964, was the last load
over the scale.
Ramos, 47 and a 23-year veteran of Amfac Sugar Kaua’i,
expressed “sadness, but we cannot think about that. How I going pay my
mortgage? I got opportunities out there.”
After working seven days a week,
16 hours a day – all the daylight hours and then some, for several years – he
is ready to take the rest of November and all of December off.
“I going
kick back,” collect unemployment and do neglected house chores and yard work,
he said. He plans to paint the house, work on the yard, fix his Ho’omana Road
home’s two bathrooms (a promise to his wife), and more.
Unless the Kaua’i
Police Department calls first. Ramos was one of over 20 people to sign up to
take the written test that is the first step toward qualifying for employment
as a police officer.
Monday, he’ll turn in his application at KPD. If the
department calls, he’ll report for his test.
Ramos’ future employment
priorities, in this order, are KPD, something in management, or something in
labor.
Reflecting more on his employment, which for him was something
beyond just a job, he said, “It hurts. It hurts a lot.”
Ramos is unsure how
long it will take him to be able to sleep much past daybreak, as his workday
used to start before the sun came up.
“To break that habit, I don’t know
how long it’s going to take,” he said. During his time at LP, he had been
seed-cutting supervisor, night shop supervisor, cultivation coordinator,
cultivation supervisor, harvesting supervisor, and held other titles and duties
along the way as well.
He finally credited Beth Tokioka, county public
information officer, for helping him big-time in organizing the final tribute
to generations of Lihu’e- and Kekaha-area plantation workers.
Staff
Writer Paul C. Curtis can be reached at pcurtis@pulitzer.net or 245-3681 (ext.
224).
