Hawaii: hotel workers strike! Potential for mass movement

HONOLULU, October 11—“This is real education!” a professor shouted as a strike-support rally at the University of Hawaii (UH) drew to an end. It truly was. The rally also inspired because it represented the potential for mass worker-student solidarity and an island-wide working-class movement against the evils of capitalism.
About 2,700 workers had been on strike against Marriott, the world’s largest hotel chain, for three days. Organizers from Unite Here Local 5 got together with faculty and student leaders to hold a strike-support rally in front of university’s School of Travel Industry Management.
Everyone cheered when it was announced that a United Airlines’ flight crew had checked out of Marriott’s Sheraton Princess Kaiulani hotel, and that the International Association of Flight Attendants was supporting the strike. The Sheet Metal Workers and the United Public Workers unions in Hawaii have also taken actions to support the strike.The slogan for the strike is “One job should be enough.” This expresses the feeling that mass poverty among U.S. workers can no longer be tolerated and awareness that only worker rebellion can bring change. Workers shouldn’t need two jobs to survive, but the grim reality is that they do. A Local 5 hotel housekeeper gets $22 per hour. The National Low Income Housing Coalition estimates that it takes more than $35 per hour to afford to rent a two-bedroom apartment.
Everyone at the rally voiced enthusiasm for building unity between workers off campus and UH students, teaching assistants, professors and workers. The rally was also the first of its kind at UH. No one could remember a campus rally led by rank-and-file workers.
The following morning, a march of about 200 workers and supporters in Waikiki picketed  in front of Marriott hotels,and ended with a demonstration on the beach next to the giant Moana Surfrider luxury hotel. The speeches and chants were an inspiring show of worker determination to fight for as long as it takes to win the strike.

What is winning?
This raises the question, what does winning mean? The Marriott workers may gain a meaningful wage hike and greater job security. But, as many of the speakers at the strike rallies have been saying, workers throughout the state have been under attack from the bosses for a long time and the working class has suffered defeats as social and environmental problems worsen.
The Marriott struggle must be seen as one part of an ongoing worker’s struggle. For example, on the same day local workers joined the nationwide hotel strike, local postal workers joined a series of nationwide protests against Trump’s latest attack on the working class, a proposal that the postal service be completely privatized. The capitalists are determined to intensify super-exploitation of workers. This means more racist, sexist and anti-immigrant attacks aimed at dividing the working class.
Strikers called for a “fair share” of the massive profits capitalists gain from tourism. Working people should not have to share anything with capitalists. We have to build a communist movement uniting all working people to eliminate capitalism once and for all. Participating in such strikes helps us learn to fight back.
The rallies this week were well organized and spirited, but they weren’t big enough. Mass leafleting in advance might have increased participation. The message that the Marriott workers’ struggle is everyone’s struggle and part of an ongoing anti-capitalist struggle must be brought out forcefully to thousands.