E noho au he pua mana no. Their business interests require cheap, not too intelligent, docile, unmarried men.". They followed this up a few years later by asking and obtaining annexation of the islands as a Territory of the United States because they wanted American protection of their economic interests. By 1923, their numbers had dwindled to 16%, and the largest percentage of Hawaii's population was Japanese. This essay is based on secondary scholarship and seeks to introduce the reader to the issue of labor on sugar plantations in nineteenth-century Hawaii while highlighting the similarities and differences between slavery and indentured labor. Meanwhile the Filipinos formed a parallel but independent Filipino Labor Union under the leadership of Pablo Manlapit. Within a year wages went up by 10 cents a day bringing pay rates to 70 cents a day. He and other longshoremen of Honolulu, Hilo and other ports took up the job of organization and struggle to achieve recognition of their union, improved conditions, and greater security through a written contract. The law, therefore, made it virtually impossible for the workers to organize labor unions or to participate in strikes. They too encountered difficulties and for the same basic reason as the plantation groups. No person, except those who are infirm, or too advanced an age to go to the mountains, will be exempted from this law. The Planters' journal said of them in 1888, "These people assume so readily the customs and habits of the country, that there does not exist the same prejudice against them that there is with the Chinese, while as laborers they seem to give as much satisfaction as any others. Although Hawaii never had slavery, the sugar plantations were based on cheap imported labor from Maderia, and many parts of Asia. This strike was led by Jack Edwardson, Port Agent of the Sailors Union of the Pacific. Plantation owners would purchase slaves from slave traders, who would then transport the slaves to Hawaii. Of 600 men who had arrived in the islands voluntarily, they sent back 100. This repression with penalties up to 10 years in prison did not stifle the discontent of the workers. I ka mahi ko. 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. The racial differential in pay was gradually closed. 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. Hawaii's plantation slavery system was created in the early 1800s by sugarcane plantation owners in order to inexpensively staff their plantations. American militia came to the island, threatening battle, and Liliuokalani surrendered. Although there were no formal organized unions, that year 25 strikes were documented. Under the protection of a landmark federal law known as the Wagner Act, unions now had a federally protected right to organize and employers had a new federally enforceable duty to bargain in good faith with freely elected union representatives. They imported large numbers of laborers from the Philippines and they embarked on a paternalistic program to keep the workers happy, building schools, churches, playgrounds, recreation halls and houses. Labor throughout the entire United States came to new life as a result of President Roosevelt's "New Deal". There were many barriers. Suddenly, the Chinese, whom they had reviled several generations back, were considered a desirable element. They and their families, in the thousands, left Hawaii and went to the Mainland or returned to their homelands or, in some cases, remained in the islands but undertook new occupations. A noho hoi he pua mana no, Employers felt they were giving their workers a good life by providing paying jobs. More than 100,000 people lived and worked on the plantations equivalent to 20 percent of Hawaiis total population. 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. taken. The Kingdom set up a Bureau of Immigration to assist the planters as more and more Chinese were brought in, this time for 5 year contracts at $4. After trying federal mediation, the ILWU proposed submission of the issues to arbitration. The Association initiated a polite request to the Planter's Association asking for a conference and appealing to the planters for "reason and justice." Hawaii's Masters and Servants Act of 1850 passed by the Kingdom's Legislature codified "contract labor" and provided the legal framework within which Hawaii would receive "indentured servants." Basically, laborers in bondage to a plantation enforced by cruel punishment from the Kingdom. In 1884, the Chinese were 22 percent of the population and held 49 percent of the plantation field jobs. The Associated Press flashed the story of what followed across the nation in the following words: By contrast the 250 chiefs got over a million and a half acres. From 1913 to 1923 eleven leading sugar companies paid cash dividends of 172.45 percent and in addition most of them issued large stock dividends.30 At last, public-sector employees could enjoy the same rights and benefits as those employed in the private sector. The decade after 1909 was a dark one for Labor. THE 1920 STRIKE: The Legislature convened in special session on August 6 to pass dock seizure laws and on August 10, the Governor seized Castle & Cooke Terminals and McCabe, Hamilton and Renny, the two largest companies, but the Union continued to picket and protested their contempt citations in court. UH Hawaiian Studies professors also wrote the initial versions of the Akaka Bill. They were the lowest paid workers of all the ethnicities working on the plantations. . 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. Where it is estimated that in the days of Captain Cook the population stood at 300,000, in the middle of the nineteenth century about one fourth of that number of Hawaiians were left. Ua eha ke kua, kakahe ka hou, There were rules as to when they had to be in bed -usually by 8:30 in the evening - no talking was allowed after lights out and so forth.17 Harry Kamoku was the model union leader. Because of the need for cheap labor, the Kingdom of Hawaii adopted the Master and Servants Act of 1850 which essentially was just human slavery under a different name. 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). After the coup succeeded, Sanford Dole was named president of the Republic of Hawaii. When the plantation workers heard that their contracts were no longer binding, they walked off the plantations by the thousands in sheer joy and celebration. a month for 26 days of work. Many who left the plantations never looked back. As the 19th century came to a close, there was very little the working men and women could show for their labors. 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. But the ILWU had organizers from the Marine Cooks and Stewards union on board the ships signing up the Filipinos who were warmly received into the union as soon as they arrived. Although Hawaii's plantation system provided a hard life for immigrant workers, at the same time the islands were the site of unprecedented cultural autonomy for Japanese immigrants. 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. Union contracts protected workers from reprisals due to political activity. Under the Wagner Act the union could petition for investigation and certification as the sole and exclusive bargaining representative of the employees. Inter-Island Steamship Strike & The Hilo Massacre The problems of the immigrants were complicated by the fact that almost the entire recruitment of labor was of males only. The Royal Hawaiian Agricultural Society organized to protect the interests of the plantation owners and to secure their supply of and control over cheap field labor. The propaganda machine whipped up race hatred. Part Chinese and Hawaiian himself, he welcomed everyone into the union as "brothers under the skin.". 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. The cry of "Whale ho!" The Organic Act, bringing US law to bear in the newly-annexed Territory of Hawaii took effect 111 years ago--June 14, 1900. In 1973 it was estimated that of 30,000 Federal workers in Hawaii, about one third are organized, mostly in AFL-CIO Unions. They spent the next few years trying to get the U.S. Congress to relax the Chinese Exclusion Act so that they could bring in new Chinese. The Japanese immigrants were no strangers to hard, farm labor. Early struggles for wage parity were also aimed at attempts to separate neighbor island wage standards from those of Honolulu City & County. This is considerably less than 1 acre per person. This listing, a plantation-era home on Old Halaula Mill Rd in Kohala shows typical single wall construction and intact details. 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. Every member had a job to do, whether it was walking the picket line, gathering food, growing vegetables, cooking for the communal soup kitchens, printing news bulletins, or working on any of a dozen strike committees. In addition, if the contract laborer tried to run away, the law permitted their employers to use coercive force such as bounty hunters to apprehend them as if they were runaway slaves. Plantation field labor averaged $15. For example, Local 745 of the Carpenter's Union in Hawaii is the largest in the International Brotherhood of Carpenters. This had no immediate effect on the workers pay, hours and conditions of employment, except in two respects. The President of the Agricultural Society, Judge Wm. Until 1900, plantation workers were legally bound by 3- to 5-year contracts, and "deserters" could be jailed. It wiped out three-fourths of the native Hawaiians. Money to lose. Hawaii's plantation slavery was characterized by a system in which large numbers of laborers were brought to the islands to work on sugar plantations. The employers used repression, armed forces, the National Guard, and strikebreakers who were paid a higher wage that the strikers demanded. In the meantime the Labor Movement has continued to grow. The article below is from the ILWU-controlled Honolulu Record August 19, 1948. Under this rule hundreds of workers were fined or jailed. Honolulu Record, August 19, 1948, vol. The Federationist, the official publication of the AFL, reported: Ia hai ka waiwai e luhi ai, He wryly commented that, "Their Former trade of cutting throats on the China seas has made them uncommonly handy at cutting cane. People were bribed to testify against them.
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