Local 5 endorses Ikaika Hussey in City Council race against Carol Fukunaga
Local 5 endorses Ikaika Hussey in City Council race
against Carol Fukunaga
(Honolulu, HI) – UNITE HERE Local 5, Hawaii’s Best Union three years in a row and one of the largest private sector unions in the state, is endorsing community advocate and longtime Local 5 ally Ikaika Hussey, who is running against incumbent Carol Fukunaga in the Honolulu City Council District 6 race.
“We are very excited to support Ikaika Hussey, who has been a friend of Local 5 for many years,” says Joli Tokusato, a Local 5 member and Ilikai Hotel worker.
Tokusato also ran for City Council against Carol Fukunaga during the last election in 2014, winning nearly 6,000 votes in the primary election but not quite enough to win the seat. “Running against an incumbent who has held political office since 1978 was a challenge. But as I went door to door talking to voters, I got a sense that people are tired of career politicians. Ikaika has been going door to door since August, talking and listening to the people and sharing his vision for a better Hawai’I,” she said.
Local 5 member Lydia Agustin, who is a housekeeper at the Hilton Hawaiian Village and a Kalihi resident in City Council District 6, expressed strong support for Hussey: “I’m voting for Ikaika Hussey because he is for the community, not for himself. He is for working families. Most of our union contracts expire this year, and we’re calling on big hotel companies like Marriott to make one job enough to live on. Ikaika is joining us in our call that one job should be enough.”
Over 10,000 Local 5 members in the hospitality, healthcare, and food service industries have union contracts expiring this year, starting on June 30. Over 7,600 of them are workers from 20 hotels across Kauai, Oahu, Maui, and Hawai’i Island.
Local 5 represents approximately 11,000 workers throughout Hawaii who work in the hospitality, health care and food service industries and is an affiliate of UNITE HERE, an international union that represents over 250,000 workers throughout the U.S. and Canada. For more information, visit www.unitehere5.org.
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