Archive for category: Updates

WATCH: FACEBOOK LIVE, WITH LOCAL 5 BARTENDER JASON MAXWELL

Today’s Facebook Live featured Local 5 bartender Jason Maxwell, who showed us how to make his favorite quarantine cocktails & encouraged viewers to donate to the Local 5 hardship fund. Watch the recording here.

NEWS HIGHLIGHTS

Plans in the works to market Hawaii as the ‘safest place in the world’ (Star Advertiser, May 1, 2020)

Most Hawaii businesses remain closed and the stay-home orders have not yet been lifted, but plans are already in the works to begin marketing the state to tourists as “the safest place on earth.” Ige said on Wednesday that it will be a while before the state opens up to tourists. But he has spoken to hotels, airlines, and visitor attractions, and “everyone is committed to reinvent the hospitality industry here in the islands. We want to be branded and known for being safe and for providing a terrific experience for visitors.”

DLIR makes progress paying claims, but must fix glitches in new PUA system (Star Advertiser, May 1, 2020)

As of Thursday, the department had paid 81,507 or just over 45% of the claims that it had in process between April 1 and April 30. During that period, it had 229,142 unique filings, with 180,175 of those filings in process.

The amount of travelers flying to Hawaii continues to remain in the hundreds (KITV, May 1, 2020)

166 visitors arrived on Thursday. A mainland couple honeymooning in Hawaii were arrested by Special Agents of the Attorney General for violating their quarantine.

Thousands of Americans backed by rightwing donors gear up for protests (The Guardian, May 1, 2020)

These “reopen” protests are being backed by wealthy conservative groups, right wing media, and Trump.

It’s useful to ask what these protesters are demanding and who financially benefits. It’s useful to ask what these protesters are NOT demanding. These protesters aren’t asking for expanded health coverage for everyone, PPE for everyone, workplace safety rules, small business bailouts, hazard pay, better wages for minimum wage jobs, rent and mortgage moratoriums, food support, recall protections, expanded unemployment or basic income benefits.

It’s just a demand to “reopen.” These right wing demands are asking workers to risk their lives and family’s lives so that capitalism can go back to its normal exploitation of workers and because they don’t like the inconvenience of stay at home orders. There’s no thought given to big picture view of what it’ll take for society to be truly safe and actually benefit working families.

‘Reopen Hawaii’ protest: 3 arrested, 5 cited at the State Capitol (KITV, May 1, 2020)

Hawaii had its own version of the national astro-turfed protests to reopen states. As the article above explains, these astro-turf protests are created by and/or funded by corporations, associations, political interests, or public relations firms. About 100 people showed up.

Stay-at-home order protesters represent a minority view (CNN, April 20, 2020)

Only 27% of Americans in an ABC News/Ipsos poll said they expected their routines to be back to normal by June 1. The majority said they expected by July 1 or later (61%) or haven’t had their daily routine changed (11%).

In a Pew Research poll, 66% of Americans were more worried that restrictions would be lifted too soon compared to the 32% who said not soon enough.

An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that 58% of voters were more worried that restrictions would be removed too early and lives would be lost, compared to 32% who were more worried that restrictions would be changed too slowly and too many jobs would be lost.

‘I’m Scared’: U.S. Workers in Reopening States Face an Impossible Choice (Vice, May 1, 2020)

Workers in reopening states are faced with an impossible choice: if you refuse work because you are scared of the risk to yourself and your loved ones, you could lose your unemployment benefits, lose your health coverage, risk your life, risk your family’s lives, lose your job, infect others against your will, and have to compete with a giant desperate pool of other people who are looking for work.

So many low-wage workers also have no savings. Many workers aren’t even getting unemployment benefits yet because state IT systems are so outdated.

‘Survival’: Tenants, landlords brace for largest rent strike in decades (NBC, April 29, 2020)

This article is about tenant rights groups and housing insecurity driving people to take action.

Coronavirus energizes the labor movement. Can it last? (LA Times, May 1, 2020)

This covers some of the many actions taking place right now by angry workers. UNITE HERE Local 11 in Los Angeles is highlighted for its victories of passing of city legislation requiring hotels and janitorial services to recall workers based on seniority, and to condition airport rent relief on concessions paying medical benefits to laid off staff.

COVID Cases Today

World: Cases: 3.34M (+90k).  Deaths: 238k (+5k)
USA: Cases: 1.1M (+30k).  Deaths: 65k (+2k).  Total Tested: 6.5M (+300k)
Hawaii: Cases:  619 (+1).  Deaths: 16 (+0).  Hospitalized: 72 (+2). Recovered: 532 (+6)

WATCH: FACEBOOK LIVE TOWN HALL – REOPENING TOURISM IN HAWAII

Today’s Facebook Live Town Hall was a great discussion on reopening tourism in Hawaii: what changes are needed in our hotels and community post-COVID-19? Watch the recording here.

Our next Facebook Live is this Friday, May 1, featuring Local 5 bartender Jason Maxwell, who’ll be showing us how to make his favorite quarantine cocktails. Watch it on our Facebook page: http://facebook.com/uniteherehawaii.

NEWS HIGHLIGHTS

Hawaii gas, Hawaiian Electric extend utility cancelation moratoriums – Pacific Business News.

Hawaii Gas and Hawaiian Electric will not shut off people’s service due to non-payment until June.

Also, from the article: “Hawaiian Electric also noted that households in need of utility payment assistance — that meet the 60% state median gross annual income limit, which is $30,767 for an individual — could be eligible for up to $1,000 of Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program Covid-19 disaster energy crisis intervention assistance.”

More fixes to Hawaii unemployment system coming soon – Honolulu Star-Advertiser

Claim recertifications are expected to move to a better 24-hour online portal by Thursday or Friday. People have been having problems logging in, and this should help fix that. Currently claim certifications are being processed by a mainframe computer from the 1980s that also serves other state agencies.

Gig workers and other “independent contractors” who can’t get unemployment will be able to start applying for a special pandemic unemployment assistance, hopefully starting Friday.

Currently there are about 30 volunteers at the Convention Center helping people by phone with minor unemployment filing errors. By Monday, the state expects to increase that number to 120 volunteers.

By May 8, the state expects to have also expanded capabilities to deal with more difficult claim issues by putting some workstations for those at the Convention Center.

The Corporate Right Is Giving Us Two Choices: Go Back to Work, or Starve – The Intercept

This article talks about the strategies that the 1% are trying to use right now to get richer at the expense of working people. Basically:

• The richest 1% need workers, because our work creates all of their wealth.
• Because they need us, they are going to pressure workers to go back to work even if it’s unsafe, even knowing people will die. They will do this by trying to starve us out and by using the government to create rules that help them.
• The 1% are afraid that workers will realize their true power and take back control over our government and our lives.

Trump says he won’t extend social distancing guidelines – Associated Press

The administration won’t renew its guidelines on social distancing. Despite the reasons Trump gave for doing this—which are mostly lies—the real reason is because they want everyone back to work, because workers generate all of the wealth for the rich.

As Amazon, Walmart, and Others Profit Amid Coronavirus Crisis, Their Essential Workers Plan Unprecedented Strike – The Intercept

Excerpt: “Workers from Amazon, Instacart, Whole Foods, Walmart, Target, and FedEx are slated to walk out on work [on Friday May 1], citing what they say is their employers’ record profits at the expense of workers’ health and safety during the coronavirus pandemic.”

Trump leverages the coronavirus pandemic to advance anti-immigrant policies – Salon.com

Excerpt: “President Donald Trump threatened to withhold federal aid in the next round of coronavirus relief from states that do not change sanctuary city policies as he continues to leverage a public health crisis to advance his anti-immigrant agenda.”

Coronavirus antibody tests will start Thursday in Hawaii – Honolulu Star-Advertiser

To be clear: nobody knows whether having coronavirus antibodies means you are immune and can’t get re-infected. There are a lot of other diseases where once you get sick and recover, you can’t get re-infected. Hopefully COVID-19 will turn out to be one of those. But right now, we don’t know.

COVID Cases Today

World: Cases: 3.19M (+90k).  Deaths: 227k (+10k)
USA: Cases: 1.03M (+30k).  Deaths: 60.8k (+2.5k).  Total Tested: 6.0M (+200k)
Hawaii: Cases:  613 (+4).  Deaths: 16 (+0).  Hospitalized: 69 (+0). Recovered: 516 (+11)

WATCH: FIRST FRIDAY EPISODE ON LABOR ORGANIZING—PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE

May 1st is International Labor Day!

Let’s start our labor victories celebration with this amazing discussion on labor organizing: past, present, and future. Watch this First Friday episode featuring Ilima Seto-Long from Academic Labor United, Kawehi Apo of Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA), and our very own Lisa Grandinetti, organizer for HMSHost Unite Here! Local 5, hosted by Noe Goodyear-Ka’opua.

NEWS HIGHLIGHTS

LIST: Here are your questions for the state unemployment office, answered (Hawaii  News Now, April 27, 2020)

FAQs from the DLIR answers:

• 222,000 unique applications have been filed with about 90,000 duplicates for about 310,000 total received so far.
• It takes three business days for the direct deposit to show up in bank accounts.
• 181,000 “claims” have been processed so far.
• 28,000 claims have been denied so far.
• The application and the claim status portal are available around the clock, but for filing an initial claim online or a certification the only time available to do that is from 6:30 a.m. to 11 p.m., Monday through Friday, and 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. on weekends.

DLIR pays out more than 65,000 unemployment claims, backlogged by thousands more (Pacific Business News, April 27, 2020)

The DLIR is still behind on 116,000 claims.  38,000 claims needed manual correction.  78,000 claims needed interactive corrections.

COVID-19 has uneven impact on Hawaii businesses (Star Advertiser, April 27, 2020)

UHERO did a survey of 623 businesses. The survey was not random and did not collect data on public sector employees or any of the large medical systems.

The results showed the hotel industry to be the hardest hit in terms of job losses, with the number of employees falling by 83% from January to April. That’s a loss of 23,252 jobs from a January total of 27,924.

Arts, entertainment and recreation was the next hardest hit category with 78% of jobs lost, followed by retail at 76% and food services at 58%.

The industries with the fewest job losses were finance and insurance with 0.7% of jobs lost and utilities with 0.8%.

The study can be viewed here.

Survey: One-third of Hawaii businesses say their revenues have plummeted to zero (Hawaii News Now, April 27, 2020)

The same UHERO survey says nearly one third of surveyed businesses had revenues drop to zero, 70% of workers laid off made less than $50,000 a year. The hotel industry expects it year over year revenues to be cut in half, roughly half of hotels and restaurants bringing in no revenue right now.

Safety checks for registration renewals waived temporarily (Star Advertiser, April 27, 2020)

Oahu motorists who renew their annual vehicle registration can now do so electronically without a valid safety check at least through May 31.

Marriott’s New Plan for Safe Hotel Stays in the Age of Coronavirus (AFAR.com, April 21, 2020)

Marriott is developing its safety protocols for COVID. Marriott International has brought on public health and infectious disease experts to develop protocols such as intense disinfecting measures and touchless check-in that could define hotel stays during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Over the next few months, Marriott plans on introducing enhanced cleaning technology at its properties—for instance, staff will be using electrostatic sprayers with hospital-grade disinfectant to sanitize surfaces throughout the hotels. The sprayers will be able to quickly clean and disinfect guest rooms, lobbies, gyms, and other public areas. In addition, the company is testing ultraviolet light technology for sanitizing keys for guests and devices shared by associates.

At more than 3,200 Marriott properties, guests will be able to use their phones to check in, access their rooms, make special requests, and order contact-less room service.

Marriott will be removing or rearranging furniture in common areas and is considering adding plexiglass partitions at its front desks. The company said it is working to make masks and gloves available to employees.

Marriott said it is also implementing enhanced sanitation guidelines and training for food safety, including recommended hygiene and disinfecting practices. It will be modifying its in-room dining services and designing new approaches to buffets, although the company said more specifics on its food and beverage offerings would be made available in the coming weeks.

COVID Cases Today

World: Cases: 3.04M (+70k).  Deaths: 211k (+5k)
USA: Cases: 988k (+23k).  Deaths: 56.2k (+1.4k).  Total Tested: 5.6M (+200k)
Hawaii: Cases:  607 (+1).  Deaths: 14 (+2).  Hospitalized: 68 (+0). Recovered: 493 (+5)