HONOLULU -- The head of the electrical workers union told KITV4 News the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1260 decided to strike because, during a negotiating session Friday afternoon, Hawaiian Electric Co. managers said they had to run the latest proposals past the company president and they wanted to break for the weekend.

Lance Miyake, business manager and financial secretary of IBEW, said Hawaiian Electric President Dick Rosenblum has attended just one of about 40 negotiating sessions the company has held with the union over the last six months. HECO officials said Rosenblum was on the Big Island visiting Hawaii Electric Light Co. Friday and unable to attend negotiations or a late-afternoon company news conference once the strike got underway.

Miyake accuses Hawaiian Electric of unfairly delaying negotiations by continually asking for more time to run offers by the president who's not at negotiations, a charge the company denies. A HECO spokesman said that's a "one-sided characterization" of the negotiations and Rosenblum had been substantively involved in negotiations. But the spokesman could not confirm how many times Rosenblum had personally attended bargaining sessions.

The union said management tried to split the membership, cutting pension benefits for employees 45 and under but keeping pensions the same for those 45 and older, one of several "takeaways" the company proposed to the union.

"One of things on the table we asked them to consider was a one-year contract, no raise and no takeaways. So it's not about money. They said 'no,'" Miyake said.

Miyake said union members feel it's unfair for unionized workers to face cuts in benefits when managers and non-union employees are getting raises.

"It's pretty upsetting that they're asking them to take a cut, and they getting bonuses, they're getting stock options. The stockholders are getting their dividends. And it's like everybody's getting something except the guys who are doing the work?" Miyake said.

Miyake said Rosenblum's pay package, including bonuses and stock options, amounts to nearly $2 million a year.

He said he knows the public will be upset that workers walked off the job when thousands of Oahu residents are out of power.

"People are angry, but who are the ones that fixed the things that is broken? It's our guys and they were working. They only stopped because they (management) stopped negotiating," said Miyake.

At a news conference late Friday afternoon, Hawaiian Electric Executive Vice President Robbie Alm said,"I don't believe on either side there's been game-playing around the schedule. I don't believe that. I think we've been trying to formulate decent counter-proposals for each other."

Alm declined to go into specific sticking points, saying the company did not want to negotiate in the media. Miyake said Alm was not present at any negotiations.

"Our contract ended on Halloween," Miyake said. "This is March. I mean, if it's not delaying tactics, I don't know what it is. If they wanted one settlement, it should have been settled."

Hawaiian Electric is using its non-union supervisory personnel and contractors hired from Hawaii and the mainland to fix outages in Ewa Beach, Waipahu and elsewhere.

"Clearly it's going to be slower. We have fewer crews to deploy," Alm said. "I do want to ask the public for its patience. We are not obviously at full staff and are having to prioritize the work."

Alm could not say how many strike replacement workers the company had brought in from the mainland.

About 54 percent of Hawaiian Electric's workforce, roughly 1,300 employees on five islands, are unionized. The other 46 percent, approximately 1,100, are non-union employees.

If the union wanted to speed up negotiations, the strike could be having an effect.

The union said before the strike began at 3:30 p.m. Friday, Hawaiian Electric managers claimed they wouldn't be able to sit back down at the bargaining table until Monday.

But once the strike began, Alm told reporters that management would like to go back to the bargaining table as quickly as possible, like this weekend or even Friday night.

"We're actually hopeful that, while there's nothing currently scheduled, that in fact we can get back talking with them as quickly as possible this weekend, next week. I mean, we'd like to be back at the bargaining table tonight," Alm said.

But as of 7:30 p.m., Miyake said he hadn't heard any calls from management to reschedule talks.

Just before 10 p.m. Friday, a Hawaiian Electric spokesman said management had "reached out" to Miyake personally and offered to meet the union at any time.

But it was unclear late Friday night if any negotiations had been scheduled.