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
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).