ASSOCIATION OF HAWAIIAN CIVIC CLUBS
A RESOLUTION
No. 2018 – 26
Standing in Solidarity with the Working Families of Unite Here Local 5 – “One Job Should Be Enough” For All To Live In Hawaiʻi
WHEREAS, 2,700 Unite Here Local 5 hotel workers, including Native Hawaiians, joined thousands of hotel workers that went on strike across eight major cities of the United States in Fall 2018; and
WHEREAS, the strike’s motto is “One Job Should Be Enough”; and
WHEREAS, Hawaiʻi has an affordable housing crisis that affects all Hawaiʻi residents, including Native Hawaiians (Hawaii’s Affordable Housing Crisis 2014, Hawaiʻi Appleseed Center); and
WHEREAS, housing is a basic need of all humans; and
WHEREAS, the “housing wage” is the wage a full-time worker must earn to pay fair market rent without spending more than thirty percent of his or her income on housing cost; and
WHEREAS, Hawaiʻi has the highest housing wage in the country at $36.13 per hour or approximately $75,000 per year (Out of Reach 2018, National Low Income Housing Coalition); and
WHEREAS, the minimum wage in Hawaiʻi is $10.10; and
WHEREAS, the mean renter wage in Hawaiʻi is $16.16 per hour or $33,613 per year, which is $19.98 per hour less or $41,387 less per year less than the housing wage (Out of Reach); and
WHEREAS, the average 1-bedroom apartment in Hawaiʻi at fair market rent is $1,427 per month (Out of Reach); and
WHEREAS, a minimum wage earner in Hawaiʻi would have to work 109 hours per week to afford a 1-bedroom apartment; and
WHEREAS, a person who earns the mean renter wage in Hawaiʻi would have to work 68 hours per week to afford a 1-bedroom apartment; and
WHEREAS, everyone in Hawaiʻi that is earning between the minimum wage and the mean renter wage must work more than one job to afford a 1-bedroom apartment; and
WHEREAS, Hawaiʻi Governor David Ige, City and County of Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell, Hawaiʻi U.S. Senator Mazie Hirono and other Hawaiʻi political, civic, labor, business, and faith leaders have demonstrated their support of the strikers’ call that “one job should be enough.”
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, by the Association of Hawaiian Civic Clubs at its 59th Annual Convention in Kalapaki, Kauaʻi, in the malama of Welehu and the rising of ʻOlepau, this 17th day of November 2018, standing in solidarity with the working families of Unite Here Local 5 – “One Job Should Be Enough” for all to live in Hawai‘i; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that a certified copy of this resolution be transmitted to the President of Unite Here Local 5, Hawaiʻi United States Senator Mazie Hirono as well as the Governor of the State of Hawai‘i, President of the State Senate, Speaker of the State House of Representatives, Chair of the State Senate Committee on Hawaiian Affairs, Chair of the State House Committee on Ocean, Marine Resources & Hawaiian Affairs, Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, and all County Mayors.
The undersigned hereby certifies that the foregoing Resolution was duly adopted in the malama of Welehu and the rising of ‘Olepau on the 17th day of November 2018, at the 59th Annual Convention of the Association of Hawaiian Civic Clubs in Kalapaki, Kaua‘i.
Annelle C. Amaral, President
