Although normally allies in the struggle against poverty, Howard County's longtime anti-poverty leader is feuding with a liberal Columbia county councilman over a hotly contested union election held last month by Head Start workers.
Dorothy L. Moore, the veteran county Community Action Council director, is accusing freshman County Councilman Ken Ulman, a west Columbia Democrat, of improperly influencing the election by campaigning for the union during the voting and via a letter distributed to the workers.
"It was inappropriate for an elected official to involve himself at that level. I feel certain we lost the election because of Mr. Ulman," Moore said yesterday.
The workers voted 25-19 June 17 to organize as part of Local 500 of the Service Employees International Union, which is trying to organize Head Start workers across the nation.
Ulman said yesterday that he responded to a union request for help and is glad he intervened.
"I'm proud of that. It was about the most intense, negative anti-union campaign I've ever seen," he said.
Moore said the whole thing "has made me literally sick. A simple phone call to me ... would have been appropriate."
"We feel it is totally wrong for an elected official to get involved," she said.
But Ulman, after saying "Dorothy Moore is somebody I respect and does a great job for folks in the community," added that the vote may have been more about "management" than pay issues.
County Council Chairman Guy Guzzone, a North Laurel Democrat who is a friend of Ulman and who also serves on the CAC board, stayed firmly on the sidelines.
"It seems to me the issue is over and everybody needs to just move on from here," he said.
The fuss began with a letter Ulman sent to Moore dated June 14, three days before the election. Noting his "heavy heart," Ulman complained about "anti-union activities by the CAC" and pointed out that lots of public and private employees in Howard County are union members who have the right to decide for themselves whether to join a union.
Moore replied in writing two days later that she supports the right of workers to decide their representation, but she wanted them to hear management's side of the issue. As an agency that depends wholly on grants to operate, she wrote, Head Start can't negotiate higher pay for teachers, for example, no matter what union organizers say.
Moore said Ulman's letter was distributed to the workers, although he told her May 16 that he had not done that. Ulman said he gave a copy to union organizers when they asked.
"It's politics at its worst," Moore said.
Calling himself "a leading advocate" for getting more money for the county's poorest citizens, Ulman said he plans on "working very closely" to further that effort.
