In a 3-month old labor dispute, painters union members picketed yesterday a Columbia office building where a Landover-based contractor used nonunion painters.
About 60 workers in the local International Brotherhood of Painters Inc. protested for two hours against L. A. Mangum and Son Inc. outside the Ryland Group Inc. building in the 11000 block of Broken Land Parkway in Town Center. L. A. Mangum, a contractor that employed union members for 32 years, was doing painting at the building.
The dispute began when L. A. Mangum declined to sign a May 15 agreement giving union workers with a 40-cent increase in their hourly wages. A company representative was unavailable for comment.
Union painters have picketed the contractor several times over the past three months at its job sites in Howard County, said Tony St. John, business manager for the union's District Council 51, which includes the Baltimore area.
Construction crew ruptures gas line
A state highway construction contracting crew broke open a gas main near Simpsonville yesterday, forcing workers on the Route 32 relocation project to shut down Route 32 temporarily.
Employees of Prince George's County-based Driggs Corp. were using bulldozers to clear rocks about 10 a.m. when they ruptured the Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. gas line, said State Highway Administration spokeswoman Kris Bevans.
The road was reopened at 11:45 a.m., and the pipe was expected to be repaired by 8 p.m. last night, a BGE spokeswoman said.
