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Editorials
Thursday, October 5, 2000Expulsion of Rutledge
foes must be reversedThe issue: Four union leaders who defied Tony Rutledge have been ousted from Unity House.
TONY Rutledge has retaliated against Eric Gill for defeating him for the top office in Local 5 of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union by having Gill expelled from Unity House, the organization formed by the hotel workers and Teamsters Local 996 to administer assets of the union members and their spouses.
All three entities owe their origins to Rutledge's labor-organizer father, the late Art Rutledge, but that fact does not give the son the right to lord it over the unions without their members' consent.
Rutledge doesn't head either the hotel workers or the teamsters local but he still controls Unity House, which administers the assets of 20,000 active and retired union members.
He got the Unity House board to expel Gill and three other leaders who have defied him -- Orlando Soriano, president of Local 5, Mel Kahele, president of the teamsters and Ronan Kozuma, teamsters secretary-treasurer.
The ousters were justified on trumped-up charges that the four plotted to "steal" Unity House's $50 million in assets and divide them between the two unions.
Rutledge supporters have also asked the hotel workers international union to remove Gill as financial secretary, accusing him of racism, violation of bylaws and failure to resolve grievances. All the charges appear to be bogus. Gill defeated Rutledge for the hotel workers post last April by 45 votes.
Sean Kim, attorney for the four ousted officials, said Soriano was ousted because he had requested Unity House payroll records, resolutions and minutes, which Kim said Soriano had a right to do. Kim asked how Soriano could be expelled for exercising those rights.
The attorney added that under state law members have the right to sue to liquidate a corporation. But the Unity House board, at Rutledge's direction, made it appear that something illegal was going on.
Before the Unity House action, Circuit Judge Gary Chang had denied a request from the four officials to block their ouster. However, there is still a chance that the judge will grant a motion to reverse the action. The situation is the result of Rutledge's determination to cling to power although he has been repudiated by both the hotel workers and the teamsters in elections.
THE only reason for Unity House's existence is to administer the assets of the two unions' members. Expulsion of the elected leaders of those unions from Unity House in effect denies the union members their designated representatives in managing Unity House's affairs.
The machinations of the Rutledges are an old story. Richard Tam, who defeated Rutledge for the same job in 1979, noted that after he won the election Rutledge disrupted his administration. He said Rutledge is doing the same thing now to Eric Gill.
This is an unacceptable abuse of power that must be corrected -- if necessary, by the courts.
Pregnancy drug tests
violate women’s rights
MEDICAL information obtained by physicians and indicating criminal activity often must be reported to police. The U.S. Supreme Court has adopted a "special needs" doctrine permitting such notification without violating a patient's right to be free of unreasonable searches.
The high court now is considering whether to extend that policy to the testing of pregnant women for drug abuse. Such a move comes close to making physicians an inappropriate arm of the law.
Many states, including Hawaii, require doctors to tell police when they encounter evidence of a crime, such as gunshot wounds or injuries from apparent child abuse. In South Carolina, a task force that included police and prosecutors agreed on a policy for doctors at a public hospital to test the urine of women the doctors suspected of cocaine use and then report positive results to law-enforcement officials.
Ten women filed a lawsuit against the hospital in 1993 challenging its policy of testing for cocaine and giving any positive results to police. Those testing positive and found to be using illegal drugs are prosecuted under South Carolina's child-endangerment law.
Drug tests are not routinely performed on pregnant women, so information about the women's drug use is not gathered in the normal course of treatment. Instead, the drug tests are being performed mainly for law-enforcement purposes.
The hospital maintains that the policy is aimed at protecting the health of unborn children, but medical groups point out that it could harm fetuses by discouraging pregnant women from seeking prenatal care. The South Carolina women gave permission for urine tests but were not advised of the legal consequences.
Circumstances arise where police should be notified about results of medical tests, most notably those revealing blood-alcohol content of injured drivers involved in traffic accidents. Such tests are expected.
However, pregnant women don't have a reduced expectation of privacy regarding their medical care records. Subjecting them to tests primarily for law-enforcement purposes should not be tolerated.
Published by Liberty Newspapers Limited PartnershipRupert E. Phillips, CEO
John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher
David Shapiro, Managing Editor
Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor
Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors
A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor
