Message From the Hawaii Local President

Seasons greetings to you, my fellow union members, and congratulations!

I am so proud of our Hawaii Local and all of our efforts on crucial matters during such difficult times these last five months. Thank you to every one of you who sacrificed and stood together in solidarity. We worked together to raise funds and donations to help with the relief efforts on Maui. We persevered and stood together during the longest TV/Theatrical strike in our union’s history. These new TV/Theatrical Contracts are truly an enormous win for all of us, and it took everyone’s efforts to make it happen. We head into this holiday season with the biggest wage increases we have ever achieved on a contract, better compensation in streaming platforms, and protections we need with the ever-changing and emerging A.I. technology.

I personally want to thank our tireless local executive director, Mericia Palma Elmore, for her coordination, implementation, communication and endless work to set up our many opportunities and rallies across the island of Oahu and on Hawaii, Maui and Kauai islands. I also want to thank the entire executive leadership team; our National Board member, Henry Ian Cusick; our longtime local VP, Charles Uyehara; and our secretary, Scott Swartz, for their volunteer time and efforts. We met each and every week throughout the lengthy strike to help strategize and give input to our national leadership and the negotiating committee, gave interviews with the media to share the many important reasons we were striking, and worked together with our ED at the gatherings and rallies, assisting with everything from checking in members to handing out strike T-shirts while ensuring opportunities that encouraged participation no matter which island you reside on. A huge mahalo; your time and efforts on important matters for our members do not go unnoticed! Thank you to all of our Hawaii members for your support of our local, our union and our industry. If you haven’t taken a moment to thank a fellow member or reach out to them to see how they are doing, please do so today.

Thank you also to everyone who showed up to help collect donations for our recent food drive for the Hawaii Food Bank. If you missed out on the opportunity, please consider bringing a donation to any local union event such as our Sing Along Trolley Ride coming up in a few weeks or in January at our conservatory event. The needs are greater than ever this year, so please give what you can and remember it is the season of giving.

Mele Kalikimaka and hauʻoli makahiki hou from the entire Hawaii Local Board and myself.

Andrea Sikkink
Hawaii Local President

Pupukahi i holomua!
Unite to move forward