U.S. Labor probing
UPW’s Rodrigues

The case appears to focus on
whether he disclosed ties to a company
doing business with the union

Union trial ruling delay unexplained

By Ian Lind
Star-Bulletin

The U.S. Department of Labor is probing United Public Workers state director Gary Rodrigues' ties to a company that supplied log building materials for union offices on three neighbor islands, a labor official said this week.

Antoinette Dempsey, district director of the Office of Labor-Management Standards, confirmed the investigation in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Star-Bulletin.

"It is an ongoing investigation, and that's all I can say at this time," Dempsey said.

The probe apparently focuses on whether Rodrigues complied with provisions of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act, which requires union officials to annually disclose possible conflicts of interest. Log Structures Inc., founded and headed by Rodrigues, was listed for a decade as the only authorized dealer in Hawaii for Lodge Log Homes, an Idaho-based firm that manufactures prefabricated-log building kits. The union spent more than $2.7 million between 1986 and 1998 to construct its distinctive log buildings on the islands of Hawaii, Maui and Kauai, according to reports filed with the Labor Department.

A company official confirmed last year that Lodge Log Homes supplied materials for the three UPW buildings and for a large home Rodrigues built in Oregon.

It is not known whether Rodrigues or his company profited from the union's purchases of construction materials.

Some UPW members have asked why the log office buildings cost so much, since UPW staff and volunteers assisted during construction to reduce labor costs.

Rodrigues could not be reached for comment and has refused to answer questions about the issue since it was first raised last year. In an earlier statement issued through his attorney, Rodrigues denied any wrongdoing.

Federal labor law requires union officials to annually report an interest in a business "any part of which consists of buying from, or selling or leasing directly or indirectly to, or otherwise dealing with" their union.

Rodrigues has not filed any reports with the Labor Department concerning his interest in Log Structures Inc. or its dealings, if any, with UPW, a department representative said. Knowingly making a false statement or willfully failing to disclose a material fact can be punished by a fine of up to $10,000 or a prison sentence of up to one year, or both.

The Labor Department's office of inspector general has also had an investigator in Honolulu several times in recent months to interview people with knowledge of the union, but little has emerged publicly concerning the focus of that inquiry. Dempsey said her office is not coordinating its efforts with those of the inspector general, although such cooperation is typical. "In this case, there is a lot of secrecy. We don't really know what's going on over there," Dempsey said.

Rodrigues disclosed during a union hearing in July that another federal investigation in the early 1980s cleared him of all allegations, hearing records show.

"The feds investigated us for all those years, cleared me of everything, said you are doing a good job, keep it up," Rodrigues stated at the hearing.

Dempsey said she could neither confirm nor deny whether there was a prior investigation.

"However, if we did complete an investigation that did not result in prosecution, it would not mean we didn't find any potentially criminal act," Dempsey said.

---

Union gives no reason
for delay in ruling

By Ian Lind
Star-Bulletin

No explanation has been offered for a union panel's three-week delay in ruling on charges that United Public Workers director Gary Rodrigues violated the rights of union members, according to one of the complainants.

Keith Chudzik, a former UPW chief steward and now a safety officer at the Board of Water Supply, said a decision was due within 30 days of the July 13 hearing.

"There's still nothing," Chudzik said. "No decision has been conveyed yet, and we haven't even been notified of the delay."

Chudzik fears that officials of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, UPW's parent union, will close ranks behind Rodrigues and find reasons to reject the charges.

"We didn't make the greatest presentation, but we didn't have that much to prove. He (Rodrigues) put our names in the paper and said a lot of stuff about us that wasn't true," Chudzik said.

"If they dismiss all of our charges on technicalities, they're cutting the onion too fine. It would be an embarrassment for our union," he said.

Chudzik and two other UPW chief stewards, Keith Faufata and Angel Santiago-Cruz, charged that Rodrigues abused his authority and violated the union constitution when he refused to disclose union records about several financial transactions they deemed questionable, and then used a UPW newsletter to attack members who criticized his actions.

Bruno Dellana, director of AFSCME's Council 84 in Pittsburgh and a member of the union's international executive board, conducted the one-day hearing.

Dellana's ruling may be delayed further if it must be reviewed by the full international executive board before it is finalized.

The board, which meets quarterly, is scheduled to convene Oct. 6-7 in Los Angeles.

Carl Biers, director of the New York-based Association for Union Democracy, a watchdog group that supports union members' rights, said delays and other procedural problems are typical of AFSCME's internal judicial process.

"At best, the proceedings are disorganized, and at worst they throw up bureaucratic obstacles to members pushing for reforms," Biers said.

Biers contrasted the AFSCME process, which relies on union insiders to consider charges lodged against union officials, with the United Auto Workers, which uses an independent panel of experts drawn from academic, professional and religious organizations.