Painting yourself in a good light

Hawaii is a very liberal and pro-Union state (it has a few flaws after all). The members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1260 did not endear themselves to the citizens of Hawaii recently. From the Honolulu Star Advertiser:

HECO strike: 1,300 workers walk off the job amid outages
Hawaiian Electric Co. used managers and outside contractors to repair storm-damaged power lines yesterday after its unionized work force walked off the job over a contract dispute.

HECO executives said the strike would slow efforts to restore service to about 8,000 Oahu homes and businesses, mostly in the Ewa Beach area, that were without power last night.

"We do have management crews out there to see what we can do about the Ewa Beach situation in particular this evening, and we will do our best to restore as much of that service as possible," said Robbie Alm, HECO executive vice president. "I don't want to guarantee that, obviously, we don't have our normal full crews out there."

About 1,300 HECO workers who are members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1260 went on strike at 3:30 p.m. yesterday and began walking picket lines on Oahu, the Big Island and in Maui County.

The workers rejected last month a tentative contract agreement reached between union leaders and management, setting the stage for the strike.

Fortunately, my favorite island is not affected as they have a co-op and not a Union. What the management is asking for doesn't seem to be extreme at all -- cost cutting and getting out from under the unsustainable entitlements while keeping the legacy staff receiving those benefit. New hires will be under a different (and more modest) plan. I am thinking that with Unions in the spotlight as they are these days, the upper management might want to dial things back a little bit...