The United Public Workers union will hold a new election to allow delegates to vote again for the top two slots in the union after an October election was invalidated by a representative of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
AFSCME International Vice President David Fillman ruled that UPW State Director Dayton Nakanelua and UPW President James Wataru can remain in office until a new election is held, but gave the union 45 days to schedule a new round of balloting under the supervision of AFSCME.
Fillman held a hearing in Waikiki on Jan. 3 to consider a challenge to the Oct. 26 union delegate voting, and upheld complaints by candidates Jerald Satake and Alton Nosaka that union officials had failed to ensure the polling of delegates was done by secret ballot.
Satake is a candidate for union president, and Nosaka is running for UPW state director. Both were defeated in the October delegate voting.
According to Satake’s complaint, the Oct. 26 balloting at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport “afforded absolutely no privacy to cast ballots. In fact there was an observer who watched individuals cast ballots on an open table with no partitions or curtains to ensure privacy.”
After the hearing on Jan. 3, Fillman ruled that the election room was set up as it had been in many previous elections and there were no previous complaints about the lack of privacy screens, but concluded “the election room arrangements were not sufficiently protective of voters’ privacy.” Fillman dismissed other protests by Satake and Nosaka.
Satake said he is dissatisfied with Fillman’s decision, and plans to appeal it to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Labor-Management Standards. Satake said he believes Wataru and Nakanelua should be removed from office until the new election is held.
Satake said the 39th UPW convention is scheduled to reconvene Feb. 8-9 at the Sheraton Waikiki, and the new round of voting by the delegates will be completed then. Nakanelua was unavailable for comment Wednesday.
UPW has about 13,000 members, including public- and private-sector hospital employees, corrections officers and blue-collar nonsupervisory employees with the state and counties.
ON THE MOVE
Starn O’Toole Marcus & Fisher has named the following new directors to its firm:
>> Former state Attorney General and Lt. Gov. Doug Chin practices in commercial litigation, administrative law and government relations.
>> Christina Ohira practices in real estate law, hotel and resorts, business structures and operations, and commercial transactions.
>> Lindsay Orman practices in real estate law, business structures and operations, and commercial transactions.
>> Stephanie Thompson practices in commercial, real estate and civil litigation, and e-discovery law.
