Striking workers want an end to seven-day work weeks at Island Ready-Mix Concrete, which promises customers on its website “a flexible schedule with 24 /7 hours to help meet your busy project schedule.”
The Hawaii Teamsters Local 996 announced the strike Thursday, posting on social media : “No contract. No concrete. Teamsters, Local 996 members are on strike against Island Ready-Mix.
“Teamsters lay the foundation of this island. It’s time for Island Ready-Mix to respect the hands that pour the concrete and keep Oahu standing strong.”
Island Ready-Mix, a small locally owned and operated company, provides services to commercial and residential customers for large and small projects, its website says.
The company did not respond to a request for comment.
City Council members Tyler Dos Santos-Tam and Matt Weyer put out a joint press release Friday expressing their solidarity with the 25 or so Teamsters working at the concrete company.
“Every worker deserves reasonable time off to spend with their family, ” said Dos Santos-Tam, a former executive director of the Hawaii Construction Alliance, made up of five construction union groups, not including the Hawaii Teamsters Local 996.
The union said the company did not meet its deadline Monday to come to the bargaining table to discuss labor conditions at their Campbell Industrial Park plant.
Teamster officials are demanding the company institute a five-day work week, and said its members at Island Ready-Mix had been working seven-day workweeks without overtime pay or compensation for hours worked beyond the typical five-day workweek.
Weyer said, “Our local unions work tirelessly to even the playing field and fight for the needs of our working families.”
Weyer, a former city planner and member of the Hawaii Government Employees Association said, “As we fight to keep families in Hawaii, I stand with local workers seeking quality working conditions and pay for time put in.”
The members are manning the picket line 24 /7, in eight-hour shifts. Members of other unions, along with community members, have joined the picket line or showed support by dropping off food, water and other supplies.
They include members of the International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers, Local 1 of Hawaii Operating Engineers, Local 3 ; UNITE HERE ! Local 5 and others.