Union membership on the Mainland is falling and the labor movement continues to reel from a major rift between some of its leaders, but Harold Dias Jr. sees plenty of reasons to celebrate this Labor Day.

Some 23.7 percent of Island workers were represented by unions last year — keeping Hawai'i second in the country, behind only New York's 25.3 percent union participation.

"What has transpired nationally is going to have very minimal to no effect locally," said Dias, president of the Hawai'i State AFL-CIO, which represents 65 unions and more than 90,000 Hawai'i workers. "I've never known the labor movement here to be more united and more in solidarity than what we see now.

"Clearly, with our plantation history, Hawai'i has a strong union background. That has helped as far as unionizing companies, because a lot of the families already have a history with unions. It's not something new that has to be learned."

This summer, the national Service Employees International Union and International Brotherhood of Teamsters pulled out of the AFL-CIO, which had no effect on union members in the Islands.

And work disruptions over issues such as efforts to get rid of employee pension plans have not been a major issue here, Dias said.

But Dias believes that union members in Hawai'i cannot become complacent.

"Unions are needed more than ever," he said. "Although we don't have the plantation, you're seeing the Wal-Marting and outsourcing of American jobs that is as dangerous — if not more dangerous — than what we've seen in the past with the plantation mentality.

"In Hawai'i, we have strong representation among government workers, the hotel industry, our utilities and telecommunications areas, along with the construction industry. But there's a lot of ground that can be made with the retail and hospitality industries. Because of our dependence on tourism, it's a natural fit."

Many recent union contracts have not resulted in large wage increases, Dias said. But employees typically have been able to rebuff efforts to shift more of the cost of healthcare on to them, Dias said.

"Healthcare will be in the forefront for the next couple of years because the costs continue to rise, especially with prescription drugs," Dias said.

So Dias remains adamant that union leaders will continue to fight for what he called the "four cornerstones of collective bargaining: healthcare, pensions, wages and job security."

Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com.