Shareholders arriving at the annual meeting of Sun Life Financial in downtown Toronto were greeted by labour union activists calling attention to Sun Life’s investment in a Hawaii hotel.
Sun Life holds a $38 million mortgage for the Pacific Beach Hotel in Honolulu. The hotel has been charged by the U.S. federal government with fifteen separate counts of violating federal labor law, including the mass termination of union activists. In response, national labor federations in both the U.S. and Japan have declared a boycott against the hotel. Partly as a result, the hotel’s occupancy rate has been 15 points below the Honolulu average for much of the past year. continue reading