The chairman of the Hawaii Labor Relations Board, citing "serious concerns" about the Hawaii State Teachers Association’s challenge to its impartiality, has set a Thursday hearing to listen to the union’s claims.
The teachers union filed a motion asking the labor board to prohibit the state from engaging in what it described as unauthorized ex-parte communications meant to influence board members. Gov. Neil Abercrombie, state schools Superintendent Kathryn Matayoshi and state Board of Education Chairman Don Horner wrote to the board Wednesday volunteering to participate in mediation to resolve a contract dispute with teachers.
In addition to the motion, the teachers union also filed a complaint with the state Ethics Commission, alleging the governor and the others violated the fair-treatment provision of the ethics code by seeking unwarranted privileges from the board through the letter.
James Nicholson, the labor board’s chairman, said Monday that the question of the board’s impartiality is of such importance that the board will air the issue before proceeding with the union’s prohibited-practices complaint against the state.
"The board has serious concerns regarding the challenge to board members’ impartiality, which are raised by this motion. The board does not want members of the public and the parties to have the impression that the board’s ability to hear this case — or any other case — has been compromised," Nicholson said. "The issue must be resolved prior to addressing any other matters in this case."
The board had been scheduled to hear arguments in the teachers union’s prohibited-practices complaint on Monday but postponed the hearing until after the question of impartiality is resolved. The union has challenged the state’s decision to impose its "last, best and final" contract offer, which includes a pay cut and higher health care premiums to help the state balance the budget.
Wil Okabe, president of the teachers union, said he was surprised by the board’s decision to postpone arguments.
Okabe said the governor’s letter last week asking for mediation "muddied the water for the labor board."
"The intention was not to humiliate or try to discredit the board," he said of the motion and the ethics complaint.
In the letter to the labor board Wednesday, which was shared with the teachers union, the governor and the others agreed to mediation but asked the board to require that all parties be vested with full authority to make proposals. The letter said the state has not received any specific proposals from the teachers union since the union rejected the state’s final contract offer in June.
The teachers union asked the governor to withdraw the letter and cease what it described as improper private communication with board members. The union alleges the letter was meant to influence the outcome of the prohibited-practices complaint, since it came just hours after a board hearing on the dispute.
Abercrombie and the others told Okabe in a letter Monday that the union’s interpretation is mistaken.
"Our letter merely put forward the suggestion that the parties mediate this dispute under the auspices of HLRB," the governor and the others wrote, repeating the call for mediation. "This is not unethical behavior."
Tony Gill, an attorney for the University of Hawaii Professional Assembly, which has joined the case before the labor board, said the faculty union has not decided whether to address the impartiality issue.
Gill asked, however, how the governor’s letter to the board could be an ex-parte communication when it was also shared with the teachers union. An ex-parte communication generally refers to correspondence involving one party in a competing case.
"The threshold question for me is, What makes it ex parte?" he said.
Hawaii News Now video: Labor board orders state to respond to HSTA
