It's been three years since workers at the Pacific Beach Hotel in Waikiki voted to be represented by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 142, but management and the union have yet to agree on a contract, and the two sides disagree on whether a settlement is near.

Union and company negotiators have been meeting for the past 18 months and have settled several key issues, including a medical benefits package and a 401(k) plan. But major sticking points, including wages and a disagreement on the extent of union representation at the hotel, have blocked progress in the negotiations.

The hotel favors an "open shop," which would give workers the option of joining the union or not. The union supports an "agency shop," which would require all workers to pay fees, although they would not have to be part of the union.

Both sides will return to the bargaining table on Thursday, but workers don't expect much will be accomplished.

"We expect them to talk about everything but open shop," said Kapena Kanaiaupuni, a bellman at the hotel for 25 years and a member of the negotiating team. "I don't expect any progress."

But Bill Comstock, hotel general manager who represents management at the talks, was more optimistic.

"I think we're on the verge of hopefully getting there," Comstock said. "But granted, there are the 800-pound gorillas that are left on the table. I will admit that."

Comstcock declined to address specific issues, including the open-shop matter, saying the hotel did not want to negotiate in the media. But he did say that he believed progress is being made.

"Both parties are beginning to look at this with some new light, and I think some real progress is going to be made shortly on this," he said. "The bottom line is we both want what's best for the employees, and perhaps we come at it a little differently."

The Pacific Beach Hotel was owned and operated by HTH Corp. until January, when the management duties were turned over to PBH Management LLC, an affiliate of Outrigger Hotels Hawai'i.

David Carey, Outrigger president and chief executive, said he is not involved in the contract talks, but said the PBH negotiating team is working hard to reach an agreement. He said he could not comment on the specifics of the talks.

"I only know a little bit about the open-shop issue, but as a manner of general policies from Outrigger's perspective, we always have a hard time recommending that you sign up for an agreement and if an employee doesn't join a union that they get fired," Carey said. "That doesn't seem right to us. We respect employee rights a lot here."

Another reason that talks seemed to have dragged is the turnover of management from HTH to PBH. The ILWU had negotiated with HTH until the hotel's management was handed to the Outrigger affiliate.

"It may have slowed down the progress a little bit until we kind of learned each other's styles and figured things out," Comstock said.

Still, Dave Mori, ILWU Local 142 O'ahu division director, said three years is an unusually long time to negotiate. He added that HTH and PBH have the same attitudes when it comes to the open-shop issue.

"Normally, for a first contract, you would achieve a settlement within the first year," Mori said.

Mori said another issue is that the hotel doesn't want to recognize the ILWU as representing the workers because of a disputed election in 2004. When the final ballots were counted, the employees voted 180-179 for union representation.

"They're always pointing out that it was a close vote, so supposedly they're raising the concern of the other workers," Mori said. But he added that the election was certified by the National Labor Relations Board, and that the union recently presented management with a petition signed by 80 percent of the workers who Mori said support the union.

Carey disagreed with Mori's assertion.

"All I can tell you is that PBH Management's view is that it has the duty to bargain in good faith with the union and has been diligently doing so since it took over as of January," Carey said.

Kanaiaupuni said both sides have settled about 90 percent of the issues but can't agree on union recognition, wages, vacation pay for minimum-wage workers, a grievance and arbitration process, and access to the hotel by union representatives. He said these are the same issues that bogged down talks when HTH Corp. was at the bargaining table.

Darryl Miyashiro, a banquet waiter, said Pacific Beach's nontip employees earn $3 to $4 an hour less than workers at other unionized hotels in Waikiki. Before the union negotiated a pay increase recently, workers earned $4 to $5 less and had not received a pay raise in 10 years, he said.

But Miyashiro said he and his co-workers aren't asking to be paid the same as employees at the other unionized hotels.

"We're not trying to hurdle or get up to par," said Miyashiro, who has been with the hotel for 16 years. "We're not that greedy. We want to eventually get there, but we understand that you cannot get there on your first contract."

Although it's been three years with no contract, Kanaiaupuni said, he and the other workers will continue to fight for a deal.

"We're going to do whatever it takes to get a fair contract," he said.

That's something that Carey agreed with.

"All I've heard from the guys at PBH is that they've been working really hard to get an agreement done," Carey said. "We want to see that our employees in Waikiki are taken care of. Negotiations are complicated, and I know they're trying hard to resolve it."

The 837-room Pacific Beach Hotel was purchased by Herbert T. Hayashi in 1970, and he added the Oceanarium Tower. Hayashi died in 2005, and his daughter, Corine, now heads HTH.