Feds look into complaints about hotel union election
By Frank Cho
Advertiser Staff Writer
Federal authorities have launched an investigation into Hawai'i's largest hotel labor union and its election of Eric Gill to the local union's top post after several rivals filed a complaint earlier this month with the U.S. Labor Department.
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Two investigators from the Labor Department's San Francisco office started interviewing Gill and his top lieutenants at the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union, Local 5, headquarters in Honolulu yesterday.
Eric Gill, pictured, defeated longtime hotel workers union head Tony Rutledge by a narrow margin in March 2000 and again on July 6, 2001. Rutledge and others are claiming the July elections were improperly conducted and are asking for a new election.
Investigators have been in Hawai'i since last week conducting interviews and reviewing election records, and are expected to return to the union's headquarters again today.
"If we find violations, we can give the union a chance to correct things on their own. That usually entails rerunning the election under our supervision," said Deanne Amaden, a spokeswoman for the Labor Department's San Francisco office.
Gill could not be reached for comment yesterday.
Tony Rutledge, Arlene Ilae and Kaui Akana filed the complaint with the government Oct. 19, saying the union's international body had ignored a list of 28 objections they filed shortly after the July 6 elections.
The three losing candidates had submitted a nine-page document contending the elections were premature, unfair and improperly supervised, and asking their international union to toss out the results and hold a new vote.
But the international union never responded to the complaint, Rutledge said. Officials with the international union could not be reached for comment yesterday.
"(The international) conducted the last election, so if there was anything wrong with it it would be difficult for them to say so," Rutledge said.
The international union placed Local 5 under trusteeship after it became concerned about problems among the Local 5 leadership and the lack of progress on workers' contracts.
In July, the international oversaw an election in which Rutledge, who ran the union for 14 years as financial secretary-treasurer, lost by 21 votes to Gill.
Rutledge also lost by a slim margin in a March 2000 election that was mandated after federal authorities ruled that Gill's name had been wrongly left off the ballot in a previous election.
Investigators interviewed Rutledge last week and are expected to return to San Francisco tomorrow. They have until Dec. 19 to complete the investigation, although federal rules allow them to seek an extension.
"I am not in a rush. I just want to make sure they (the investigators) do thorough job. If they find merit, maybe there should be another election. If not, that's good enough for me," Rutledge said.
