UH union official submits letter of resignation after conflict of interest complaints

During a bitter and emotional board meeting earlier this month, directors of the University of Hawai’i Professional Assembly (UHPA) dismissed a conflict of interest complaint against a top union official and instead passed a series of motions warning the professor who has repeatedly raised the conflict issue to ‘cease and desist’ or face censure for ‘anti-union’ and ‘anti-labor’ actions.

The internal rift may have already taken its toll. John Radcliffe, the popular and politically astute associate executive director of the union representing faculty throughout the UH system, has submitted a letter of resignation, although it has not been accepted by the union’s leadership.

The dispute was triggered by Jerome ‘Jerry’ Comcowich, a UH-Manoa faculty member and a founder of UHPA in the early 1970s, who has repeated questioned an 18-year-old union policy that allows Radcliffe to lobby on behalf of private clients at the same time he represents the union.

During the last two years, according to State Ethics Commission filings, Radcliffe was a registered lobbyist for more than 20 private clients including R.J. Reynolds, the nation’s second largest tobacco company; Corrections Corporation of America, which has the contract to house thousands of Hawai’i prisoners on the mainland; the Hawai’i Insurers Council; Unidev LLC, one of the developers competing for the contract to develop the UH-West O’ahu campus, and more than a dozen other corporations and industry groups.

Comcowich believes Radcliffe’s dual roles create an inherent conflict of interest and has aimed a barrage of criticism at the union in a series of at least nine email broadsides, which he refers to as ‘Comcograms.’

But other board members say specific conflict allegations have been repeatedly investigated without finding any wrongdoing or violations of union policy, while Comcowich’s insistence on repeatedly raising the same issue threatens to leave the board unable to function.

‘The board has not ignored it. The board has disagreed,’ responded Joel Fischer, an often outspoken professor of social work. In many cases, no conflict has been found to exist because UHPA does not take positions on the moral or economic issues of interest to Radcliffe’s private clients, such as gambling or tobacco use, according to the union’s published ‘Board Notes.’

Comcowich brought two specific matters to the board for review in recent months. The first involved Unidev, a developer of work force housing that was among the four finalists considered to design and build the university’s new West O’ahu campus.

Radcliffe reportedly started discussing West O’ahu with Unidev officials in mid-2004, later registered as a lobbyist for the company and, according to a lawsuit pending in state court, was in a partnership that would have benefited if Unidev won the West O’ahu contract.

Radcliffe strongly denied any conflict in an e-mail last week.

‘I never made one red cent from Unidev,’ Radcliffe wrote. ‘I totally recused myself from any Unidev stuff that could have involved UH. I would never profit from my UHPA involvement.’

Another apparent conflict cited by Comcowich dated back to the 1996 election when Radcliffe urged his client, R.J. Reynolds, to pump more money into efforts to defeat Rep. Jim Shon, who Radcliffe referred to in an e-mail as ‘a main enemy of tobacco.’ At the time, Shon was considered a supporter of the university and had been endorsed by UHPA. Shon lost the election and his seat in the House by a narrow margin to a Reynolds-back opponent.

But the union’s leaders believe Radcliffe’s extensive outside interests, far from creating a conflict, actually allow UHPA to leverage its position and increase the union’s overall influence and political clout.

What will happen next isn’t clear. Radcliffe summed up what he believes is the attitude of most faculty members about his private lobbying: ‘They just don’t care what I do.’

Meanwhile, Comcowich’s motion to accept Radcliffe’s resignation died without a second, indicating a lack of support on the board, and he now faces censure and possible expulsion if he persists. But Comcowich says directly: ‘I will not be silenced.’

For more reports from Ian Lind, visit [www.ilind.net].