That HSTA ethics complaint against the governor and the DOE leadership? In my opinion, it’s a very long stretch to try to reframe a legal procedural issue into an ethics complaint, and it seems to be a misuse the Ethics Commission to gain leverage in this labor dispute.

HSTA has posted some of the correspondence back and forth that led to its complaint to the ethics commission, although not all of the links work.

Reading through the ethics complaint, which was posted by Civil Beat, it is very clear that the union has a valid procedural beef. The governor stepped out of channels by communicating directly with the labor board about a legal case pending before it. It would be the same as a letter to a judge about a ruling the judge was about to make. These outside communications are generally prohibited. On that I agree with the union.

The union’s complaint to the ethics commission remains focused on this prohibition against “unauthorized ex parte communications,” defined as “private communications with members of the board as to the merits of a proceeding with a view towards influencing the outcome of the cause….”

That seems to describe the August 10 letter to the labor board chairman signed by the governor, the superintendent, and the school board chair.

It seems to me there’s no question the issue needs to be addressed by the labor board as a violation of their rules and procedures. But the attempt to bootstrap an ethics charge onto it seems to me a somewhat cynical attempt by the union’s lawyers to gain additional leverage in public perception rather than a serious move to enforce ethical standards of conduct.

Even the section of the union’s ethics complaint that supposedly spells out the specific ethics violations instead relies primarily on a recitation of alleged violations of the state’s collective bargaining law, Chapter 89 HRS, rather than the state ethics law. In my view, it demonstrates the real basis of their complaint.

I don’t know which side has the upper hand in the legal issues over unilateral imposition of the state’s “last, best, and final offer” to teachers. Typically the union’s have an edge because their lawyers are far better equipped than the state’s lawyers in terms of long, practical experience with the labor laws, past practice, and so on. The state, though, has set aside $50,000 tohire Robert Katz, an employment law specialist, to assist in making their case.

Clearly, though, this is a case that will be won or lost before the labor board, unless subsequent negotiations make its decision moot, and not settled by the ethics commission.