Data Dive: Hawaiʻi’s Highest Paid Union Leaders
Working in organized labor can be lucrative — for some.
Some of the leaders of Hawaiʻi’s most powerful unions are bringing in hefty paychecks, according to the latest filings with the U.S. Department of Labor and the IRS.
Topping the list is George Paris, the executive director of the Hawaiʻi Iron Workers’ Stabilization Fund, who was earning a whopping $570,406 as of 2023.
Paris has been one of Hawaiʻi’s highest paid union leaders for at least 30 years, media reports show.
The stabilization fund is not a union in and of itself — it has no members per se — but it represents the interests of the Iron Workers AFL-CIO Local 625. That union, which had 703 members as of last year, is run by George Paris’s son, Bronson Paris, who made $199,640 as of 2023.
The state’s second highest paid union leader is Ron Taketa, an executive with the politically powerful Hawaii Regional Council of Carpenters, who made $371,147 last year.
Taketa represents the interests of some 6,000 carpenters in Locals 745 and 746.
See Hawaiʻi’s top 20 highest paid union leaders below:
UPDATE: This page has been updated to reflect that the union leaders’ total compensation includes allowances and disbursements for official union business.
