Impact of layoffs on minds of workers

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HALIIMAILE - Shortly before 6 a.m. Tuesday, Maui Pineapple Co. gathered hundreds of its workers outdoors and notified them that they'd be out of job at the end of the year.

Hours later, as a couple dozen men walked to their cars and trucks at the end of a day, some said they were surprised by the announcement. Others said they knew it was coming with the recent upper-management changes, the closure of the new fruit processing plant and, finally, multimillion-dollar deficits by the pineapple producer and resort and development company.

But as the workers shook the dust from their boots and wiped the day's dust and sweat off their faces, the men said they were worried about how they'd pay their bills. How would they support their wives, children and girlfriends, they asked. A few of the men said they send part of every check back home to Micronesia for their extended families.

"I'm going to try to find a job, but there's none around," said Albert Pelep, 24, who worked in the fields for the past three years, has a pregnant girlfriend and was caught off guard by the layoffs.

"Maybe I'll have to move back to my island (in Micronesia)," said Pelep, who will do landscaping work to make ends meet, hopefully, until the economy comes back. "If you don't have a job in Maui, you can't afford to live here. Where you gonna stay? Everybody is thinking the same thing, 'What am I gonna do?' "

Rufino Almarez, 53, said he was employed at the Kahului cannery until it closed in 2007 and then was transferred to the fields.

"We knew for a long time; every day some of us wondered if it was our last," Almarez said. "Well, it happened now. We can't do anything about it."

Dennis Cacayorin, 50, said he'd heard rumors for months about closing. He'd even heard the Dec. 31 plant closing date. Up to 285 employees will be laid off. This comes after an additional 374 employees were laid off since 2008.

As another former cannery employee, Cacayorin said he'd been doing anything asked of him to keep working, from picking pineapple to cutting the grass. Now with two children in college, Cacayorin said he plans to put his college training as a machinist to use. If anyone is hiring.

"I don't know where I'm going to get the money we need," he said.

The pineapple jobs paid well and came with good benefits. The men interviewed doubted they'd be so lucky in the current job market.

Cacayorin was one of several soon-to-be former Maui Pine employees who blamed the death of pineapple on Maui on three Maui Land & Pineapple Co. chief executive officer changes in six years - and all the failed, incongruous strategic planning and squandered investments made by each new regime.

Ikinasio Laotore, 49, said he was definitely caught off guard by Tuesday's announcement. For the past 16 years, he operated irrigation machinery. Like many of the other men interviewed, Laotore said his girlfriend had a job, too, but both parents need to work on Maui to make ends meet. How will they pay the mortgage now, he wondered aloud.

"I thought it would happen sooner or later," said Erilihs Ringlen, a 40-year-old truck driver and harvest machine operator. "What did they expect when they kept switching around management and moving us around, and then say they were going to downsize and then build a bigger (canning) facility. None of it made any sense."

* Chris Hamilton can be reached at chamilton@mauinews.com.