Reginald Castanares, Business Manager

Rather than the traditionally expected “feel-good” yearend and year-ahead message, I suspect you prefer this space focus on matters of substance, like issues of the recent past that still affect us and other sectors and groups who share our concerns.

Hawaii is well past into its third year of a painful economic blight. Fortunately the impact has not been overly severe. While economists generally suggest the economy won’t improve for another 12 months, indications are that local construction will do a little better than this ending year. As the experts put it, just follow the money. Much of the latter is in the fed’s stimulus program, for which we are grateful to our Congressional members assigned to appropriations-- Senator Daniel Inouye and Congressman Neil Abercrombie.

Those of us who depend on the state and counties for project funding and as regulators will have to live with their pinched budgets. Our concern is to ensure that despite reduced work hours the agencies empowered to ensure that businesses licensed to operate abide by the laws that govern their respective activities. There should be no excuse for slippage in this area because violations involve shoddy work and questionable compensation. The consumer public deserves protection. In that context, organized businesses need to be equally alert to abuses and offer assistance to those regulators who claim they are shorthanded. Unions have always offered support in this area.

Contrary to some public perceptions, organized labor has long played a partnership role in development and improvement of the communityat-large. Often its contributions are barely cited in the media. That is not a problem because we know the beneficiaries are grateful. Beyond the organizations, their members quietly lend their individual services as volunteers. Local 675 is proud of its members involved with their local neighborhoods, scout and school groups, and various health and human service charities. In a social sense our membership is a ‘community,’ a truly united ohana.

To help ourselves, we’ve had to look beyond our shores. As earlier mentioned, we’ve scouted Guam and neighboring territories as additional work sites. The reputation of the graduates of our distinguished training program has caught on in those far-away places. Efforts are continuing to make sure American dollars obligated there are especially applied to the use of American labor. The transition of military forces from Asian bases to Guam remains fluid, and hopefully it hastens, to make 2010 a cheerful year for us.