Rutledge resigns from Local 5 during hearing
By Jim Dooley
Advertiser Staff Writer
Embattled Hawai'i labor leader Tony Rutledge resigned "under protest" yesterday from the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Local 5 — an organization he once headed and that his father, Art Rutledge, founded — short-circuiting an effort by HERE's national watchdog group to ban Rutledge for life from the union for ethics violations.
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Rutledge resigned at a hearing convened by HERE's Public Review Board, a watchdog agency established by the national union in the wake of long-running federal probes into labor racketeering, mob ties and other problems inside the 265,000-member organization.
Tony Rutledge said he will continue to head Unity House.
The review board said in July that Rutledge, who served as an international vice president of HERE for 30 years, should be barred from membership for life for a variety of alleged ethical and legal violations, according to documents filed in an income-tax evasion case pending against Rutledge and his son, Aaron, in federal court here.
A federal indictment returned Aug. 20 says the defendants and the late Art Rutledge, who died in 1997, skimmed more than $350,000 in daily cash receipts from the Star-Beachboys concession in 1992 to 1997 and put the cash in four safe-deposit boxes. They have pleaded not guilty.
In a press release issued yesterday, Tony Rutledge did not address the review board's findings against him other than to say, "There are no charges that I personally benefited, or that union funds were lost or that any union member was denied their rights or privileges under my watch."
He said he believes the national union's officials are pursuing the charges because of his campaign against the amount of union dues sent to the national union by the more than 10,000 members of Local 5.
Rutledge said he had been a member of Local 5 for 35 years. He ran the union local from the position of financial secretary-treasurer for 16 years, losing that position to Eric Gill in two bitterly contested elections in 1998 and 2000.
Gill declined comment yesterday on Rutledge's resignation.
Rutledge said he will continue to head Unity House, an umbrella labor organization that administers millions of dollars in assets for the benefit of members of Local 5, Hawai'i Teamsters Union Local 996, and other union organizations in the state.
Reach Jim Dooley at 535-2447 or jdooley@honoluluadvertiser.com.
