HONOLULU -- Honolulu police arrested 84 protestors who refused to leave the Kalakaua Avenue in front of the Hyatt Regency Waikiki on Thursday evening.

The hotel workers and their supporters paid $50 bail and were told to appear in court next month. They face charges of disobeying a police order to move.

"It's a sacrifice for my family and future generations of hotel workers. We've got to make sure we have decent middle class jobs,"said Rod Kane, a cook at Sheraton's Princess Kaiulani Hotel.

About 1,000 union members of the Local 5 marched on the hotel. A smaller group locked arms and sat on the roadway in front of the Hyatt Regency Waikiki at about 5 p.m. Police asked that they leave the road, but they refused. That is when officers began arresting the protestors and hauling them off to jail.

The master contract covering 6500 hotel workers expired June 30. The union has had two meetings each with Hilton and Sheraton, officials said. However, the union leaders said that they have not been able to meet with Hyatt, yet.

"Hyatt Regency Waikiki recognizes the role our associates play in our hotel and beginning as early as May of this year, we began reaching out to the leadership of Local 5 to arrange meeting dates to open negotiations. In response, union leadership has chosen to stage demonstrations rather than coming to the bargaining table to find solutions to issues that are important to our associates," the hotel said in a statement.

Similar protests targeting Hyatt Corporation took place in 15 cities across the U.S. and Canada.

The union wants to paint Goldman Sachs as a greedy wall street corporation trying to use the economy to lower job standards.

"This is Wall Street that crashed our economy. They commited themselves to outrageous stupid loan decisions and now they want workers to bail them out," said Local 5 union leader Eric Gill.

Hyatt Regency Waikiki general manager David Lewin says the hotel is looking for work rule changes but underscored the point that over the last two years, Hyatt's employees saw their wages increase and benefits improved.

Honolulu Police Chief Louis Kealoha praised his officers response to the mass demonstration. noting it may have been the largest number of civil disobedience arrests in Honolulu.

"Considering the magnitude of the event and the number of arrests, I believe the officers of the Honolulu Police Department did an excellent job," Kealoha said.

"We made a powerful statement. It's not our intention to create a public nuisiance or to flaunt the law that's not what this is all about, said Eric Gill.

The protest snarled the traffic on the main artery in Waikiki. All lanes of Kalakaua were eventually reopened by 6:30 p.m.