We successfully fought back DCYF's attempt to block members from observing our Labor Board hearings!

Our Twitter post has garnered over 3,500 views so far, a testament to the widespread support for our cause. With bipartisan support via retweets/likes from 12 state reps and 3 senators, this is just the beginning. Other legislators have expressed their support outside of social media, further strengthening our cause.

Click the purple link to see Twitter post

https://x.com/SEIU580/status/1818021762031853732

By Edward Fitzpatrick Globe Staff, Updated July 29, 2024, 2:15 p.m.

R.I. Labor Relations Board will allow video recording of hearings

In a decision addressing a ‘gray area’ of the Opening Meetings Act, the board allows the SEIU Local 580 union to record hearings on unfair labor practice charges but will not allow live streaming, for now.

PROVIDENCE: The state Labor Relations Board will allow video recording of future hearings but will not allow live streaming, at least for now. The decision addresses a “gray area” of Rhode Island’s Open Meetings Act.

The Rhode Island Alliance of Social Service Employees, SEIU Local 580, had requested permission to video and livestream a LaborRelations Board hearing on unfair labor practice charges.

But the state Department of Children, Youth, and Families objected, arguing that no video recording should be allowed because these kinds of quasi-judicial hearings don’t fall under the Open Meetings Act’s definition of a meeting.

In a meeting Thursday, the Labor Relations Board decided to allow video recording at hearings based “on the fact that this is the formal hearing that is open to the public, that it is a meeting where there is a quorum of the board, and that quasi-judicial proceedings are not exempt from the Open Meetings Act,” board attorney Jeffrey W. Kasle said Monday.

But for now, the board will not allow live streaming of hearings, Kasle said. “The live streaming issue is a question of evidence as to the necessity. We have not seen that as yet,” he said. “We are leaving that option open, but it has to be proven it’s necessary as opposed to video recording or audio recording.”

A written decision is expected to be issued at the board’s Aug. 13 meeting, Kasle said.

The matter arose on June 6 when the Labor Relations Board met in Cranston to take up unfair labor practice charges filed by the Rhode Island Alliance of Social Service Employees. 

The union has accused DCYF of retaliation, collusion, and threatening union members, and it called DCYF chief of staff Misty Delgado as an adverse witness.

Union President Matthew Gunnip said SEIU Local 580 appreciates the Labor Relations Board’s decision to allow future hearings to be recorded on video. “This will bring transparency to DCYF’s violations against frontline workers,” he said. “Our most vulnerable children rely on these workers daily to provide critical services.”

While the board has not ruled on the unfair labor practice charges, he said the alleged violations involve “threatening and retaliating against frontline child welfare workers advocating for children and their families, refusing to bargain in good faith, and refusing to provide information our members are legally entitled to.”

The board’s decision to prohibit live streaming for now is “not an issue for us,” Gunnip said. “The fact we can video-record meets the same goal for us.”

DCYF spokeswoman Damaris Teixeira said, “DCYF respects the board’s decision and will review the written decision upon release and identify next steps, if any.”

Justin Silverman, executive director of the New England First Amendment Coalition, said, “This is a welcome decision for transparency and our right to view Labor Relations Board hearings. The ability to record public meetings, even of a quasi-judicial body, is in line with open government principles and the spirit of the law.”

But, he said, “It’s not clear what harm live streaming would cause or why the board is prohibiting real-time viewing. If the board is going to recognize its hearings as open, then it should allow any type of recording that is permissible under the Open Meetings Act.”

Silverman has said matters involving quasi-judicial bodies fall into a “gray area” of state laws on open meetings.“There has been a lot of litigation in other New England states about what constitutes quasi-judicial bodies, advisory bodies, and other public bodies that don’t fit squarely within each state’s open meetings act,” he said.

State labor relations lawyer George Rinaldi had objected to video recording or live streaming the hearings, saying that while the board’s monthly meetings are subject to the Open Meetings Act, the evidentiary hearings are not.

Rinaldi pointed out that the Open Meetings Act contains an exception for the courts. “Now, admittedly, the way that it’s phrased, it says, ‘Judiciary Department.’ You’re clearly not that,” he told the board. “But I think the implication of that is these types of adversarial off-site judicial hearings are not subject to the Open Meetings Act. They just don’t fit.”

But a lawyer for the union, Elizabeth Wiens, had argued that LaborRelations Board hearings do fall within the definition of a “meeting” under the Open Meetings Act.

“Notably, there is nothing in the (Open Meetings Act) that exempts evidentiary hearings from the coverage of the (act) and no court decision or attorney general opinions exempts them,” Wien

s wrote. “If the General Assembly intended to exempt certain evidentiary proceedings from the reach of the (act), it would have made that clear either when the (act) was first enacted in 1956 or in the nearly 70 years since it was enacted.”