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Rodrigues
critics will get
top-level hearing

An AFSCME board will review
the ruling that cleared the UPW
leader of violating workers' rights

By Ian Lind
Star-Bulletin

Charges that United Public Workers state director Gary Rodrigues violated the rights of union members will be reconsidered next week by UPW's parent union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

Following a one-day hearing in July 1999, an AFSCME hearing officer found Rodrigues innocent of charges that he refused to disclose union records of several questionable financial transactions and then retaliated against UPW members who continued to raise questions.

That ruling was appealed to the union's international executive board, which is scheduled to consider the issue at a meeting that will be held Friday in New Orleans.

The union records being sought related to a sexual harassment claim filed by a former union employee who had a longstanding personal relationship with Rodrigues; alleged travel at UPW expense to Oregon, where staff members reportedly helped build and maintain a home owned by Rodrigues; and his ownership of a company that distributed the log building supplies used to construct union offices on three islands.

Rodrigues has headed the UPW, the state's second largest public employees union, since 1981, and has been considered one of the state's most politically influential labor leaders.

But during the last year, Rodrigues has been dogged by dissidents who question his tight personal control of the union. The UPW and Rodrigues have also been hit by a federal grand jury subpoena for thousands of union documents, and an ongoing probe of the union's activities by investigators from the U.S. Department of Labor.

Keith Faufata, a city wastewater worker and one of three UPW chief stewards who filed the charges against Rodrigues, called the scheduled hearing "very good news," but questioned why more notice wasn't given.

Faufata said he learned of the scheduled hearing in a Jan. 24 letter from AFSCME Secretary- Treasurer William Lucy, which was delivered in Honolulu several days later.

Lucy's letter advised that any additional documents or arguments would have to be submitted immediately to be duplicated and distributed in time for Friday's meeting.

The letter was AFSCME's first acknowledgment of the appeal, which was submitted more than three months earlier on Oct. 11, Faufata said.

Rodrigues could not be reached for comment. He has refused to answer questions about these issues for more than a year.

The appeal raises both procedural and substantive challenges to the ruling of AFSCME hearing officer Bruno Dellana, director of AFSCME's District Council 84 in Pittsburgh.

Dellana ruled it was not a violation of the union's "Bill of Rights" for Rodrigues to make derogatory statements about UPW members, even if those statements were known to be untrue or in direct retaliation for opposing Rodrigues' leadership.

But Dellana failed to consider whether Rodrigues' exclusive use of the union's official newsletter to broadcast those attacks was a violation of members' free speech rights.

Rodrigues has repeatedly used the union's newsletter, Malama Pono, to personally attack his opponents. The March 1999 issue printed the names of hundreds of UPW members who signed a petition critical of Rodrigues, while an accompanying article accused them of supporting efforts by legislators "to steal our jobs or take away our benefits."

Requests by critics to have their response printed in a subsequent issue were ignored by Rodrigues and never responded to, according to evidence submitted during the hearing.

The November Malama Pono, distributed during UPW's election for state officers, contained repeated attacks on Faufata, a candidate for UPW's state executive board, as well as Angel Santiago-Cruz and Keith Chudzik, who had joined in filing the charges against Rodrigues.

All three were repeatedly accused of lying and of conspiring with the Star-Bulletin "to destroy the union."

Use of union funds to favor particular candidates over others in a union election would violate federal labor law, but the published attacks on Faufata did not specifically identify him as a candidate for union office.

Faufata said that copies of Malama Pono have been submitted to the AFSCME international executive board along with the appeal.

"It just shows what type of answer we're going to get from the state director, and how childish the response from Gary has been," Faufata said. "This all started because we asked one or two important questions about our (union) money.

"Instead of getting answers, we just get retaliated against."