LIHU’E – To underemployed former Amfac Sugar Kaua’i workers like Stanley Dotario, who has lived without medical insurance for the past 12 months, the best thing Steve Case could have done with his recently acquired Lihu’e acreage was re-start Lihu’e
LIHU’E – To underemployed former Amfac Sugar Kaua’i workers like Stanley Dotario, who has lived without medical insurance for the past 12 months, the best thing Steve Case could have done with his recently acquired Lihu’e acreage was re-start Lihu’e Plantation Company in the sugar-growing business.
But Case knows a money-losing venture when he sees one, so that idea probably never made it to his radar screen. Case’s Grove Farm and Lihu’e Land Company have opted to enter into agricultural and related leases and licenses for activities on its 17,000 acres formerly known as Lihu’e Plantation.
That leaves as current Amfac employees on Kaua’i essentially only those operating the Amfac LP power plant off Haleko Road here, on a few of the acres Amfac still owns on the island.
The second floor of the Lihu’e Plantation Building is still Amfac’s via lease, but the cmpany has informed the building’s new owner that after the middle of next month it will only require a couple of offices, for the remaining management and human resources personnel.
That leaves around 432 former Amfac Sugar Kaua’i workers, split nearly equally in half between former Kekaha Sugar and Lihu’e Plantation operations.
The latest state statistics showed 36 Kauaians still working for Amfac, with a note stating Amfac continues to lay off people.
Possibly as many as 75 former Amfac Sugar Kaua’i employees are still in the sugar business, with the island’s remaining plantation, Gay & Robinson.
Many, many others, though, including Kalaheo’s Dotario and Ernest Domingo of Lihu’e (see photo on page 11-A), have not found full-time employment offering precious medical benefits and decent pay – things they got used to in their combined 72 years of service at Lihu’e and Kekaha, respectively.
Both men are in their late 50s, and both hoped to complete 40 years of service at their respective plantations, retire with good pensions and retirement benefits (including health insurance), and end gracefully what for Dotario would have been the fourth and final generation of sugar workers since his great grandfather ventured to Kaua’i from his native Portugal.
Both Dotario and Domingo have their applications in with various island employers, and ironically also spent some time over the last year on the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations Workforce Development Division payroll, helping their union brothers and sisters find jobs after the plantations closed down a year ago yesterday.
It was Friday, Nov. 17, 2000, when the ceremonial last loads of sugar cane loaded onto 18-wheeler trucks rolled into the LP weighing and off-loading station, followed by a moving procession of plantation vehicles through Lihu’e town.
The economy the way it was a year ago, the conventional wisdom was that those who could retire would, and most of those who needed to find work could do so with landscaping, construction and related companies, G&R, or the hotel industry that was nearing the end of its best-ever year.
Conventional wisdom was wrong. Many of those whose jobs ended with the closing of Amfac Sugar Kaua’i were reluctant to take starting pay of around half of their hourly wages at the plantation, even with good benefits. They made better money collecting unemployment.
Others took higher-paying jobs that didn’t provide the benefits the International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU) had gained for them over the years. Even with concessions made during the final contract negotiations to keep Amfac Sugar Kaua’i financially viable longer than it otherwise would have been, the benefits were still pretty good at the end.
But after six months of unemployment benefits came to an end, and pension, retirement, severance and strike-fund checks distributed and spent, many workers in addition to Dotario and Domingo find themselves floundering without full-time employment or medical benefits.
Both are currently working in temporary positions with the ILWU, and worry about what’s to come for them and their former co-workers.
“Members are still hurting at this point,” said Domingo, a former ILWU shop steward, tractor driver and equipment operator at Kekaha. “They need good-paying jobs with benefits,” he added.
According to state figures, as many as 300 of the 432 displaced former Amfac Sugar Kaua’i workers were employed at the end of September, even with the downturn in the mainland and Japan economies and stock markets, and the events on and after September 11.
But for most, the wages and benefits they’re making now don’t match up to their most recent previous employer’s package.
And don’t even get the men started by mentioning how Gov. Ben Cayetano vetoed a bill that would have extended Amfac Sugar Kaua’i workers’ unemployment benefits an extra six months, when he approved nearly exactly the same legislation for visitor-industry workers and others impacted by the events and aftermath of September 11 terrorism acts.
Dotario borders on bitterness when he considers how state and county officials pledged support for former Amfac Sugar Kaua’i workers seeking employment, and one year later he hasn’t gotten one telephone call about government jobs he has applied for.
“If they really wanted to help the sugar workers, give us a shot,” he said. The former plantation workers have proven they can do the job, that they’re hard-working and dedicated employees, and have experience and knowledge.
“We’re dedicated workers. Take a chance with us,” said Dotario.
Domingo has encouraged his former co-workers to take lower-paying full-time jobs that offer the benefits the workers and their families need, he said.
“There’s jobs” listed at the Workforce Development Division along Kuhio Highway across from the Lihu’e McDonald’s, he added. “No give up. Just keep on going. The job not going come to them;” they have to go get the jobs, Domingo said.
Dotario, who operated a backhoe for 35 years at LP, agreed, telling his former work mates they shouldn’t get discouraged, and should keep applying for jobs listed in classified advertising in the newspaper, and at WDD.
For others, it will soon be time to move on, get training to obtain skills to get a job in a non-agricultural field, Domingo said. Others may opt to get the equivalent of a high school diploma through the GED (General Education Development) test.
Of their co-workers who have landed on their feet, some are working in maintenance and groundskeeping positions at Wilcox Hospital, some are working at the CEATECH shrimp farm in Kekaha, and others are with G&R, Domingo said. Others are working maintenance, groundskeeping and other positions in the visitor industry.
But for them, and for Dotario and Domingo, it hasn’t been the same since the plantations closed. Both men and countless of their lifelong friends and co-workers still find themselves out of habit rising with the sun, and subconsciously getting their lunch boxes ready for another long shift at the plantation.
Then, suddenly and sadly, realizing again that the plantations aren’t there anymore.
Staff Writer Paul C. Curtis can be reached at mailto:pcurtis@pulitzer.net or 245-3681 (ext. 224).
