Over 300 health care and hospitality employees, who are members of UNITE HERE Local 5, rallied in Waianae on weekend.
They called out companies that, according to them, are cutting local jobs despite the need for workers.
“Big corporations like the hotels and Kaiser Permanente are using this pandemic as an excuse to implement changes that make it harder for our community to survive,” Zena Nasau, a hotel worker and resident at the Nanakuli Homesteads, told Hawaii News Now.
Demonstrators are urging Kaiser Permanente to reopen the Nanaikeola clinic, Hawaii News Now reported.
“With the opening of our NextGen West Oahu Medical Office at Kapolei in April, we’ve made the decision to keep Nanaikeola Clinic closed. Primary care services that were based at this clinic will remain at the new West Oahu Medical Office, which is less than 7 miles away and where we have added new staff positions to better serve our patients. All staff from Nanaikeola were reassigned to other facilities during the pandemic, so we do not anticipate any job losses due to this change,” a spokesperson for Kaiser Permanente said, according to Hawaii News Now reported.
The tourism industry, on the other hand, has almost 4,000 hospitality employees waiting to go back to work, despite the state’s influx of visitors over the last few months, Hawaii News Now reported.
