Letters for Wednesday, December 27, 2006

• Walter Pomroy remembered

• A proposed big box solution

• Laying blame

• Fitting in

• Losing faith in government

Walter Pomroy remembered

Aloha from California! I was reading through The Garden Island and came across where Walter Pomroy passed away (Obituaries, Dec. 20).

What a loss to all of us!

When I lived on Kaua‘i, Walter used to deliver the mail to my firm. He always made me smile and always filled the day with sunshine. I know he will be missed.

Mahalo, Walter, for bringing joy to so many people. You are missed.

Redondo Beach, Calif.

A proposed big box solution

Since so many of the letters I read in support of the big box stores focus on the issues of “choice,” “freedom” and the economic well-being of working families, I would like to suggest that the council and the mayor offer the big-box hopefuls, and Wal-Mart in particular, this choice: Either we pass a ban on superstores, or you agree to sign a neutrality/card-check agreement.

This agreement would bind the corporation to maintain complete neutrality during union-organizing drives in their store. It would also require them to recognize the union immediately, and begin bargaining in good faith, once a simple majority of employees signs cards indicating their desire to form a union and bargain collectively for wages, benefits and working conditions.

As the largest private employer in the United States, Wal-Mart sets the standard for all other private employers. By suppressing wages and benefits to the point that many Wal-Mart employees nationwide rely on public assistance to make ends meet, Wal-Mart costs all of us, employees and tax-payers alike. By competing against unionized grocery stores in which workers have bargained for family-supporting wages, a Super Wal-Mart on Kaua‘i will lower the standard for all employees. How will this improve the economic well-being of our citizens?

Wal-Mart has a dark history of suppressing its employees’ freedom of choice and right to organize. (Regardless of one’s opinion of unions, the right to freely associate and form unions is a basic civil liberty we value in the United States, and one with a rich history in Hawai‘i.) When employees are free to organize and bargain for fair wages, benefits and working conditions, they can lift themselves out of poverty and dependence. However, when an employer, particularly one with the corporate might of Wal-Mart, harasses and intimidates workers attempting to exercise their rights, low wages and flimsy benefits rule the day.

Kaua‘i is experiencing an 2 percent unemployment rate. In such a climate, workers have the advantage in seeking more favorable conditions. The County Council can and should take advantage of this fact and demand that powerful and immensely profitable corporate giants benefit our community beyond offering low prices.

For the record, I am not a “union boss” angling for a fat paycheck but a working American who has enjoyed the wages and benefits of a union job.

Hanalei

Laying blame

This ruckus over big box retail stores is a bit ridiculous at this point in time. The horses (boxes) have already left the starting gates and there is no turning back this race for profit. The race is a go and we have no one to blame for this situation other than ourselves, our community.

It must be recognized that these boxes are not being built for local folks, but are being built for future folks planning to move here. Decisions have been made behind locked doors by a powerful group of individuals, concerned more with private business and government monopolies rather than responsible leadership. It has been decided that it is time for Kaua‘i to become “Maui-ized.” Our community has, in essence, surrendered the future of Kaua‘i to it’s elected “public servants” that are repeatedly re-voted back into office, some serving for decades.

The blame for today’s dilemmas that Kaua‘i is facing (the present big box issue; high electric, fuel and solid waste cost; traffic congestion; over-development; lack of affordable housing, well-paying jobs, quality education for our children; Superferries; drugs; law enforcement and many other issues) rest in the hands of our island residents, nowhere else.

Blame not the big boxes, rather your continual inbreeding of a contaminated political bloodline, which has produced a history of monopolistic, irresponsible, self-serving leadership resulting in non-achievements concerning the betterment of the public’s welfare. A monopoly in business or government creates abuses encouraging an atmosphere of a limited, closed and controlled society.

Of course, this is just one man’s opinion.

Mahalo and ALOHA.

Lawa‘i

Fitting in

Humans are an interesting species. There are 6.4 billion of us. The United States is the only western country that is growing in population (about 8,000 a day). We humans have overpopulated the planet at the expense of every other wild plant and wild animal, but we complain constantly of traffic and over-development.

In the U.S., we do nothing to control our population. We will spend millions to poison our environment to kill the harmless little coqui frogs because they are too noisy, but we allow and encourage businesses that use needlessly loud helicopters and motorcycles. We let the Navy blast active sonar, 10,000 times louder than a rocket launch, through the whole ocean and then we take our visitors on whale-watching trips. We blast lawn mowers and leaf blowers, noisily turning the landscape to a “French Poodle” and then exclaim how we love natural beauty.

Noise is pollution. It is annoying and can cause hearing loss. Isn’t it time we take a step back and look at the big picture?

Humans are just one species on this planet; we cannot continue to “stay the course.” Just as we have to learn to get along with each other, we have to get along with other species.

Kekaha

Losing faith in government

All of this just proves there is no difference between the Democrats and Republicans; they are all insane. They have created a civil war, are in the middle of it and there is no way of winning anything. It is an occupation by a foreign power and the insurgents will keep fighting to get us out of their country just as we would if China invaded the U.S.

Bush has created a national debt that is 500 percent of gross domestic product, meaning that we are insolvent, bankrupt and doomed to financial disaster.

I have used the term “shades of Rome” to describe our government before and it gets nearer each day that the insanity in Iraq continues.

I get so p—ed off, I would move to New Zealand tomorrow if I didn’t love our island of Kaua‘i so much.

Kapa‘a