The advent of statehood in 1959 and the introduction of the giant jet airplanes accelerated the growth of the visitor industry. We must not simply enjoy the benefits gained from those who worked so hard in the past without consideration for the future. An article in the Pacific Commercial Advertiser of 1906 complained: SKILLED TRADE UNIONS: However, much of its economy and the daily life of its residents were controlled by powerful U.S.-based businesses, many of them large fruit and sugar plantations. In the years following the 1909 strike, the employers did two things to ward off future stoppages. It wasnt until the 1968 Constitutional Convention that convention delegates made a strong statement and pushed for public employees to have a right to engage in collective bargaining. Thirty of their friends, non-strikers, were arrested, charged with "inciting unrest." There came a day in 1909 when the racist tactics of the plantation owners finally backfired on them. Immediately upon asking the first Japanese his name, the Special Agent and his interpreter were accused of being agents of Manager Lowrie sent into the Camp to secure the names of the ringleaders of the strike, and were set upon by a number of Japanese. One of Koji Ariyoshi's columnists, Frank Marshall Davis--, like Ariyoshi, also a Communist Party member. The whaling industry was the mainstay of the island economy for about 40 years. Originally built in 1998, it lost its place in the Guinness Book of World Records until it was expanded in July 2007. WHALING: Immigration and Relocation in U.S. History, Classroom Materials at the Library of Congress. Workers were forbidden to change jobs without permission from the employer. There were no major strikes although 41 labor disturbances are on record in this period. Those early plantation experiences set the stage for ongoing change and advancements in the labor movement that eventually led to the publics support for oppressed public employees, who at the time were the lowest paid in the nation and had the least favorable job security and benefits. Later this group became the White Mechanics and Workmen and in 1903 it became the Central Labor Council affiliated with the American Federation of Labor. Flash forward to today, Aloun Farms: Neil Abercrombie's slavery problem (more irony from another product of UH historical revisionism), Hawaii Coalition Against Legalized Gambling, Hawaii's Partnership for Appropriate & Compassionate Care, The Organic Act, bringing US law to bear in the newly-annexed Territory of Hawaii took effect 111 years ago--June 14, 1900. Working for the plantation owners for scrips didnt make sense to Hawaiians. The Federationist, the official publication of the AFL, reported: By the mid-16th century, African slavery predominated on the sugar plantations of Brazil, although the enslavement of the indigenous people continued well into the 17th century. Today, all Hawaii residents can enjoy rights and freedoms with access and availability to not only public primary education but also higher education through the University of Hawaii system. It soon became clear that it required a lot of manpower, and manpower was in short supply. Key to his success was the canning of pineapple, as it enabled the fruit to survive the long voyage to markets in the eastern United States. Bennet Barrow, the owner of nearly 200 slaves on his cotton plantation in Louisiana, noted his plantation rules in his diary on May 1, 1838, the source of the following selection. As to Waikiki, I first learned about the rape of the land during a visit to the lookout point up on Tantalus. By 1923, their numbers had dwindled to 16%, and the largest percentage of Hawaii's population was Japanese. It shifted much of the population from the countryside to the cities and reduced the self-sufficiency of the people. The islands were governed as an oligarchy, not a democracy, and the Japanese immigrants struggled to make lives for themselves in a land controlled almost exclusively by large commercial interests. Unlike in the mainland U.S., in Hawaii business owners actively recruited Japanese immigrants, often sending agents to Japan to sign long-term contracts with young men who'd never before laid eyes on a stalk of sugar cane. Hawaii Plantation Slavery. And chief among their grievances, was the inhuman treatment they received at the hands of the luna, the plantation overseers. This listing, a plantation-era home on Old Halaula Mill Rd in Kohala shows typical single wall construction and intact details. They were responsible for weeding the sugar cane fields, stripping off the dry leaves for roughly only two-thirds compensation of what men were paid. The article below is from the ILWU-controlled. But these measures did not prevent discontent from spreading. All told, the Planters collected about $6 million dollars for workers and equipment loaned out in this way. Under the provisions of this law, enacted just a few weeks after the founding of the Royal Hawaiian Agricultural Society, two different forms of labor contracts were legalized, apprenticeships and indentured service. The cry of "Whale ho!" The Ethnic Studies version of history falsely claims "America was founded on slavery." rules in face-to-face encounters with their slaves. Meanwhile in the towns, especially Honolulu, a labor movement of sorts was beginning to stir. Wages were frozen at the December 7 level. Davies, and Hackfeld & Co., which later became AmFac. The next crop, called the "first ratoon," takes another 15 months. Double-time for overtime, Sundays and holidays. Sugar and pineapple could dominate the economic, social and. Far better work day by day, Maderia, along with my cavaquinho strumming GGF, gave birth to the Hawaiian the Ukulele. Labor throughout the entire United States came to new life as a result of President Roosevelt's "New Deal". On June 10, the four leaders of the strike, Negoro, Makino, Soga and Tasaka were arrested and charged with conspiracy to obstruct the operation of the plantations. An advance of $6 was made in China to be refunded in small installments. "22 Thus the iron grip of the industrial oligarchy, which had controlled Hawaiian politics for over a half century through the Republican Party, was broken. They seize on the smallest grievance, of a real or imaginary nature, to revolt and leave work"15 From the beginning there was a deliberate policy of separation of the races, pitting one against the other as a goal to get more production out of them. The chief demands were for $2 a day in wages and reduction of the workday to 8 hours. The notorious "Big Five" were formed, in the main, by the early haole missionary families at first as sugar plantations then, as they diversified, as Hawai'i's power elite in all phases of island business from banking to tourism. Most of the grievances of the Japanese had to do with the quality of the food given to them, the unsanitary housing, and labor treatment. This had no immediate effect on the workers pay, hours and conditions of employment, except in two respects. Two years after the strike a Department of Immigration report said, "The sugar growers have not entirely recovered from the scare given them by the strike. and would like to bring in to the islands large numbers of Filipinos or other cheap labor to create a surplus, so that.. they would be able to procure the necessary help without being obliged to pay any increase in wages." Luna, the foreman or supervisors of the plantations, did not hesitate to wield their power with whips to discipline plantation workers for getting out of line. The Waimanalo workers did not walk off their jobs but gave financial aid as did the workers on neighboring islands. We must each, in our way, confront the deeper questions: What can we do to ensure that the hard-won freedoms that we have been entrusted with are not stripped away from the bloody hands who fought for them? Hawaii's plantation history is one of sugar cane and pineapples. Hawaii later became. Many immigrants surprisingly found themselves in unfavorable working conditions enslaved in the fields or in the mills, enduring constant pain and suffering clinging to the hope that they would be able improve the quality of life for their families, all the while enriching their employers. Workers shopped at company stores and lived in company housing, much of which was meager and unsanitary. Due to the collaborative work of the unions, in combination with other civil rights actions, today all ethnicities can enjoy middle-class mobility and reach for the American dream. This strike was led by Jack Edwardson, Port Agent of the Sailors Union of the Pacific. Dala poho. The labor contracts became illegal because they violated the U.S. Constitution which prohibits slavery and involuntary servitude. The cumulative effect of all of those strikers was positive: within a year, wages increased by 10 cents a day to 70 cents a day. One early Japanese contract laborer in Hilo tried to get the courts to rule that his labor contract should be illegal since he was unwilling to work for Hilo Sugar Company, and such involuntary servitude was supposed to be prohibited by the Hawaiian Constitution, but the court, of course, upheld the Masters and Servant's Act and the harsh labor contracts (Hilo Sugar vs. Mioshi 1891). Sugar cane had long been an important crop planted by the Hawaiians of old. One year after the so-called "Communist conspiracy" trials, the newly won political rights of the working people asserted itself in a dramatic way. The Organic Act, bringing US law to bear in the newly-annexed Territory of Hawaii took effect 111 years ago--June 14, 1900. Hawaii was the first U.S. possession to become a major destination for immigrants from Japan, and it was profoundly transformed by the Japanese presence. Ua eha ke kua, kakahe ka hou, Arrests of strike leaders was used to destroy the workers solidarity. All but one of the 34 largest plantations were impacted. The documents of the defense were seized at the office of the Japanese newspaper which supported the strike. Only one canner stays in Hawaii, the Maui Land and Pineapple Company, Island," as although the citizens have been mere plantation slaves. Under this law, absenteeism or refusal to work could cause a contract laborer to be apprehended by the district magistrate or police officer and subsequently sentenced to work for the employer an extra amount of time after the contract expired, usually double the time of the absence. The dividing up of the land known as "The Great Mahele" in that year introduced and institutionalized the private ownership or leasing of land tracts, a development which would prove to be indispensable to the continued growth of the sugar growing industry. Their work lives were subject to the vagaries of political machinations. By 1923, their numbers had dwindled to 16%, and the largest percentage of Hawaii's population was Japanese. Then came the Organic Act which put an end to penal contract labor in June 1900, two years before the contracts of the 26,103 Japanese expired. Harry Kamoku was the model union leader. Honolulu Record, August 19, 1948, vol. Unemployed workers had to accept jobs as directed by the military. In 1935 Manlapit was arrested and forced to leave for the Philippines, ending his colorful but tragic career in the local labor movement. Slavery and voter disenfranchisement were built-in to the laws by those who stood to make obscene profits by exploiting both the land of Hawaii and its people. By 1892 the Japanese were the largest and most aggressive elements of the plantation labor force and the attitude toward them changed. Every woman of the age of 13 years or upwards, is to pay a mat, 12 feet long and 6 wide, or tapa of equal value, (to such a mat,) or the sum of one Spanish dollar, on or before the 1st day of September, 1827.2. The Higher Wage Association was wrecked. It cost the Japanese community $40,000 to maintain the walkout. This vicious "red-baiting" was unrelenting and stirred public sentiment against the strikers, but the Union held firm, and the employers steadfastly rejected the principle of parity and the submission of the dispute to arbitration. These conditions made it impossible for these contract workers to escape from a life of eternal servitude. By 1968 unions were so thoroughly accepted as a part of the Hawaiian scene that it created no furor when unions in the public sector of the economy asked that the right of collective bargaining by public employees be written into the State Constitution. Late in the 1950's the tourist industry began to pick up steam. "COOLIE" LABOR: The two organizations established contact. In 1973 it remained the largest single trade union local with a membership of approximately 24,000. On June 8th, police rounded up Waipahu strikers who were staying with friends and forced them at gunpoint to return to work. The rest of this story is about historical revisionismand a walk through several decades of irony. On Haller Nutt's Araby Plantation in 1843, the planter reported several slave deaths that resulted "from cruelty of overseer," including that of a man who was "beat to death when too sick to work" (Nutt, [1843- 1850], p. 205). The propaganda machine whipped up race hatred. Women had it worse. Wages were the main issue but the right to organize, shorter hours of work, freedom from discrimination, and protests against unfair discharge were matters that triggered the disputes. But the strike was well organized, well led and well disciplined, and shortly after the walkout the employers granted increases to the workers who were on "Contract", that is working a specified area on an arrangement similar to sharecropping. But when the strike was over public pressure mounted for their release and they were pardoned by Secretary of the Territory, Earnest Mott-Smith. The Japanese were getting $18 a month for 26 days of work while the Portuguese and Puerto Ricans received $22.50 for the same amount of work. Their lyrics [click here] give us an idea of what their lives must have been like. On June 11th, the chief of police banned all public speeches for the duration of the strike. The Organic Act stated in part: "That all contracts made since August twelfth, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight, by which persons are held for service for a definite time, are hereby declared null and void and terminated, and no law shall be passed to enforce said contract any way; and it shall be the duty of the United States marshal to at once notify such persons so held of the termination of their contracts.". [6] It included forced sexual relations between male and female slaves, encouraging slave pregnancies, sexual relations between master and slave to produce slave children, and favoring female slaves who had many children. The people picked up their few belongings and families by the hundreds, by the thousands, began the trek into Honolulu. As to the plantations, still no union had been successful in obtaining so much as a toe-hold in any plantation of the Territory until 1939. American militia came to the island, threatening battle, and Liliuokalani surrendered. They too encountered difficulties and for the same basic reason as the plantation groups. Part Chinese and Hawaiian himself, he welcomed everyone into the union as "brothers under the skin.". The plantation features the world's largest maze, grown entirely out of Hawaiian plants. Unlike other attempts to create disruption, this was the first time a strike shut down the sugar industry. [see Pa'a Hui Unions] In 1973 the Federation included 43 local unions with a total membership in excess of 50,000. Particularly the Filipinos, who were rapidly becoming the dominant plantation labor force, had deep seated grievances. While the plantation owners reaped fabulous wealth from the $160 million annual sugar and pineapple crop, workers earned 24 cents an hour. Native Hawaiians, who had been accustomed to working only for their chiefs and only on a temporary basis as a "labor tax" or Auhau Hana, naturally had difficulty in adjusting to the back-breaking work of clearing the land, digging irrigation ditches, planting, fertilizing, weeding, and harvesting the cane, for an alien planter and on a daily ten to twelve hour shift. In 1973 it was estimated that of 30,000 Federal workers in Hawaii, about one third are organized, mostly in AFL-CIO Unions. The West Coast victories inspired and sowed the seed of a new unionism in Hawaii. Hawaii too was affected and for a while union organization appeared to come to a standstill. In 1920, Japanese organizers joined with Filipino, Chinese, Spanish, and Portuguese laborers, and afterwards formed the Hawaii Laborers' Association, the islands' first multiethnic labor union, and a harbinger of interethnic solidarity to come. In 1853, indigenous Hawaiians made up 97% of the islands' population. Pineapple plantations began in the 1870s, with the first large-scale plantation established in 1885 on the island of Lanai. At first their coming was hailed as most satisfactory. This led to the formation of the Zokyu Kisei Kai (Higher Wage Association), the first organization which can rightfully be called a labor union on the plantations. Sugar cane plantations began in the early 1800s, with the first large-scale plantation established in 1835 on the island of Maui. Sixty plantation owners, including those where no strike existed banded together in a united front against labor. No more laboring so others get rich. In his memoir, "Livin' the Blues" (p320), Davis describes Booker T Washington touring Hawaii plantations at the turn of the 20th century and concluding that the conditions were even worse than those in the South. Employers felt they were giving their workers a good life by providing paying jobs. Far better work day by day, The first commercially viable sugar cane plantation began in 1835 by Ladd and Company in Koloa, Kauai. During these unprecedented times we must work collectively together and utilize our legal and constitutional rights to engage in collective bargaining to ensure our continued academic freedom, tenure, equity, and democracy.
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