Board may compel answers in youth facility probe

By Treena Shapiro
Advertiser Staff Writer

The Hawai'i Labor Relations Board is considering whether to compel the former legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union-Hawai'i to return from Thailand to answer questions about alleged abuses at the Hawai'i Youth Correctional Facility.

Brent White left to serve as a visiting scholar in Thailand shortly after he refused to answer some of the questions about a scathing report citing rape, brutality and crowded conditions at the facility, which led to a change in management. State lawyers later obtained O'ahu grand jury indictments against one guard on charges that include raping a girl at the facility and another guard charged with intimidating a witness.

At a hearing before the board yesterday, Herbert Takahashi, United Public Workers Union attorney, said, "It is contemptuous for a witness to not answer questions the board has directed him to answer. For the board to ignore this behavior would be wholly improper."

The UPW wants White to answer questions for a case that alleges that the state violated the guards' collective bargaining agreement when Attorney General Mark Bennett authorized White to interview the juveniles and when Gov. Linda Lingle publicized the report that disparaged 13 guards by accusing them of criminal conduct.

The union wants to know what White observed and whom he talked with in the two days he spent at the facility in June and July.

One element the board will consider is whether the ACLU-Hawai'i's likely appeal of a subpoena would delay the union's case against the state. The board is also deciding whether White needs to turn over information from meetings he had with the governor and Bennett.

The board denied most of the state's motion to dismiss the case. The state argued that it was not a collective bargaining issue and therefore should not be taken up by the Labor Board.

"It's almost as if they're saying the protection of the collective bargaining agreement insulates these guards from the (attorney general) going in and looking at their misconduct, like it's some shield they can assert against the (attorney general) doing his job and against the ACLU asserting their right of access to these wards," Deputy Attorney General Dan Morris told the board yesterday.

Takahashi later explained that the board ruled that the parties must go to arbitration on contractual violations and to state court for civil contempt for violating a previous arbitrator's award. However, the Labor Board will hear all statutory claims, including discrimination, interference and the failure to bargain. "In the main, it remains here," he said.

Reach Treena Shapiro at tshapiro@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8070.