Aston Hotels responds to union accusations

On April 21, 2015, UNITE HERE! Local 5—the private sector union representing hotel, food service and healthcare workers in Hawaiʻi—filed eight unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) related to the Aston Waikiki Beach Hotel and Hotel Renew, both managed by Aston Hotels & Resorts.

One week later, the company has responded to the accusations in a statement, blaming an out-of-date employee handbook and “miscommunications between employees” for the charges.

“We are currently working with the NLRB on resolving those charges,” the statement said. “Like most employers, we are adjusting older employee handbook policies to reflect very recent changes required by new NLRB decisions in mainland cases, and the recent NLRB General Counsel memorandum on employee handbooks which was released just last month.”

According to the statement, many of these problems have since been corrected.

But Local 5 says the dispute is about more than a handbook. The union alleges that managers at the two hotels violated federal law by conducting surveillance on workers and threatening, bullying and harassing them in retaliation, after they sought representation with Local 5 in February of this year.