HSTA welcomes new UniServ Director for Windward Oahu

The Hawaii State Teachers Association is pleased to welcome Kristin Hamada to the organization in the role of UniServ Director for Windward Oahu. Her first day was Sept. 19.

Hamada, who was born and raised in Aiea on Oahu, brings a variety of experience in labor and organizing to HSTA. She earned her bachelor’s degree at the University of Colorado Boulder, where she studied political science and psychology, and earned a certificate in peace and conflict studies. After taking a year off to travel, Hamada completed her master’s in gender development and globalization at the London School of Economics.

During her time in London, Hamada developed an interest in women’s and workers’ rights and racial justice while volunteering for groups like Women for Women International and Hackney Unites with a focus on community organizing. In addition, her work on the Water for Africa Research project at the School of Oriental and African studies greatly influenced her commitment to environmental issues.

Hamada moved back home to Hawaii in December 2016 and worked in various front-office roles in Waikiki hotels. Notably, while a lobby greeter at the Prince Waikiki, she helped spearhead an effort to get the workers there to unionize.

“It was a really nice place to work,” she said, “but there are always improvements that we can make, and we found that we needed to work collectively to achieve them. We had to form a union in order to get some of the things that we wanted.”

Hamada and her co-workers started a campaign to unionize in March 2020, just as the pandemic was beginning. After campaigning through the summer, a vote was held in August, during which the hotel’s employees ultimately voted narrowly against unionizing.

Despite the loss, she said she “felt like being involved in that work was really meaningful, because a lot of us put in a huge amount of effort into making sure that our co-workers were cared for in that time, that people understood elements of how to do unemployment insurance, making sure that people were healthy and checking in with one another. And so it was a really nice, although challenging time, to see a lot of our co-workers coming together and really building a community at work.”

Prior to joining HSTA, Hamada worked as a labor relations specialist at the Hawaii Nurses Association covering Queen’s Medical Center’s Punchbowl and West O’ahu campuses. She answered questions from members about their contract, represented members, led grievances, and organized members on collective issues. During her time, she secured wins for members regarding the use of on-call staff, internal recruitment and promotions, and concerns around safe patient handling.

She noticed a lot of similarities between nurses and teachers, including that both were frontline workers during the pandemic, and both have workforces that have been “really overlooked for a number of reasons for a long time.”

“We need to really start to take care of the workers who have taken care of our communities, like our children and our elders,” she said.

Hamada was compelled to join HSTA because her mom was a teacher and an HSTA member.

“I felt the benefits personally of what having a strong union does and what it means to people. I also think that public schools are really important for the strength of our democracy, for the future of our communities, and the future of Hawaii,” she said.

“I believe that having quality public education — and that means having happy teachers in public schools — is really important for our future, our democracy, and the survival of our communities,” she added.

In her new role, Hamada looks forward to getting to know our members better and supporting them while helping to build a strong union.

When she’s not working, Hamada enjoys cooking, baking (a hobby she took up during the pandemic), and surfing.