Employees Union

A year-long struggle between the Omni Inner Harbor Hotel and its employees union will continue when an administrative law judge hears charges that the hotel tried to bust the last union of hotel workers in Baltimore.The National Labor Relations Board filed a complaint last month saying the hotel solicited employees to sign petitions to abolish the union and then failed to recognize it as a bargaining unit."It's a flat-out attempt to bust the union. They have no problem intimidating people, coercing people," said Paul Richards, executive secretary-treasurer of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union, Local 7."

San Francisco. -- This Labor Day is different. For the first time in years, U.S. unions will not be deploring yet another year of decline, but celebrating the beginning of a union resurgence.It's only a small start, but a definite start it is -- genuine movement toward revitalizing organized labor, one of our most important yet most troubled institutions.As those familiar with labor are well aware, its troubles stem primarily from the constant decrease in the proportion of workers belonging to unions.

WASHINGTON -- In the battle over health care, no one is immune. Not even federally insured government workers.As congressional lawmakers prepare to take up health care before the August recess, government worker unions are preparing an all-out lobbying blitz to safeguard the benefits their ranks currently receive."

While public housing was crumbling and most municipal employees were being furloughed or denied raises, the city's Housing Authority workers received an extra $1,000 each -- a total of $1.4 million that could have been spent on blighted buildings.Money for the worker payments in August was drawn from federal accounts and grants given to the Housing Authority of Baltimore City for administering the public housing program.The payments to about 1,400 workers resulted from a collective bargaining agreement between the Housing Authority and two union locals that represent maintenance employees and supervisors, in lieu of a pay raise.

A federal judge yesterday gave the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) permission to distribute leaflets at the Social Security Administration complex in Woodlawn.The decision in U.S. District Court in Washington clears the way for the NTEU to resume its quest to bring 8,000 employees at the complex -- and 55,000 workers nationwide -- under its aegis."This ruling means we will have access to the sidewalk at Woodlawn, and we will use them," said Susan N. Holliday, a spokeswoman for the Washington-based union.

As she sauntered out of her usually quiet Social Security Administration office at quitting time Wednesday, Eileen Freter walked smack into a clump of jostling, obscenity-shouting union activists -- and history.She and her 12,000 fellow SSA workers at the Woodlawn complex are a focus of one of the biggest raids in American history, and an important experiment in union democracy.For Ms. Freter and many like her, a fight between two unions over the right to represent federal employees is little more than a rear-guard action in a doomed cause.

Four top staff members of the independent Maryland Classified Employees Association, the largest state employees union in Maryland, yesterday defected to a rival union, saying that independent labor unions face an increasingly difficult future.The four said their move from MCEA to Council 92, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, was based on belief that the national union, with affiliation, offered more resources and capability to represent state workers.Meanwhile, a third union organizing state workers announced that it has secured enough member signatures to achieve the automatic deduction of dues, or check-off, on state payroll checks.

A union battle over the representation of 55,000 workers at the Social Security Administration ended yesterday, at least temporarily, with the retreat of the challenger.Robert M. Tobias, president of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), said he had suspended his five-year battle with the American Federation of Government Employees, which has represented workers at the Social Security Administration since 1979.The SSA headquarters in Woodlawn, with more than 12,000 employees, had been the site of shouting and occasional shoving matches in the union-vs.

Activists from two competing unions handed out leaflets, shouted slogans, called each other names and occasionally shoved each other in front of the Social Security Administration headquarters yesterday, as the nation's biggest union-vs.-union battle moved into high gear.Declaring their differing allegiances with white T-shirts or red caps, dozens of members of the two federal-employee unions clustered around one of the buildings in the Woodlawn complex at yesterday's 3 p.m. shift change.

Another labor union has jumped into the ring to organize Maryland state workers, prompting a cry of foul by one competing union and renewing calls from labor officials for a collective bargaining law to resolve the confusion.The new union, sponsored by the American Federation of Teachers, is aimed at organizing some 6,000 state correctional workers, and opens the door for raiding members of three other state employee unions.Heading the organizing drive for the new Maryland Correctional Employees Union (MCU)

The largest state employees union balked yesterday at a proposal from Gov. Martin O'Malley that its members take up to five unpaid leave days as a cost-saving measure to help close a budget shortfall. "We would like to see a plan without furloughs," said Patrick Moran, Maryland director of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which presented the administration a separate proposal. "Otherwise, people who depend on state services are going to come in on a given day and are going to find no one there.

This month, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services improperly allowed a total of $50 million to be deposited into the bank accounts of hundreds of thousands of participants in the new prescription drug plan. And this week, employees at the Woodlawn-based agency began the difficult task of getting all of it back. CMS spokesman Jeff Nelligan said that a data processing error among a small team of workers in Woodlawn stopped the Social Security Administration from automatically deducting prescription drug premiums from about 231,000 participants' Social Security checks.

This month, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services improperly allowed a total of $50 million to be deposited into the bank accounts of hundreds of thousands of participants in the new prescription drug plan. And this week, employees at the Woodlawn-based agency began the difficult task of getting all of that money back. CMS spokesman Jeff Nelligan said that a data processing error among a small team of workers in Woodlawn stopped the Social Security Administration from automatically deducting prescription drug premiums from about 231,000 participants' Social Security checks.

A year-long struggle between the Omni Inner Harbor Hotel and its employees union will continue when an administrative law judge hears charges that the hotel tried to bust the last union of hotel workers in Baltimore.The National Labor Relations Board filed a complaint last month saying the hotel solicited employees to sign petitions to abolish the union and then failed to recognize it as a bargaining unit."It's a flat-out attempt to bust the union. They have no problem intimidating people, coercing people," said Paul Richards, executive secretary-treasurer of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union, Local 7."

San Francisco. -- This Labor Day is different. For the first time in years, U.S. unions will not be deploring yet another year of decline, but celebrating the beginning of a union resurgence.It's only a small start, but a definite start it is -- genuine movement toward revitalizing organized labor, one of our most important yet most troubled institutions.As those familiar with labor are well aware, its troubles stem primarily from the constant decrease in the proportion of workers belonging to unions.

WASHINGTON -- In the battle over health care, no one is immune. Not even federally insured government workers.As congressional lawmakers prepare to take up health care before the August recess, government worker unions are preparing an all-out lobbying blitz to safeguard the benefits their ranks currently receive."

While public housing was crumbling and most municipal employees were being furloughed or denied raises, the city's Housing Authority workers received an extra $1,000 each -- a total of $1.4 million that could have been spent on blighted buildings.Money for the worker payments in August was drawn from federal accounts and grants given to the Housing Authority of Baltimore City for administering the public housing program.The payments to about 1,400 workers resulted from a collective bargaining agreement between the Housing Authority and two union locals that represent maintenance employees and supervisors, in lieu of a pay raise.

A union battle over the representation of 55,000 workers at the Social Security Administration ended yesterday, at least temporarily, with the retreat of the challenger.Robert M. Tobias, president of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), said he had suspended his five-year battle with the American Federation of Government Employees, which has represented workers at the Social Security Administration since 1979.The SSA headquarters in Woodlawn, with more than 12,000 employees, had been the site of shouting and occasional shoving matches in the union-vs.

As she sauntered out of her usually quiet Social Security Administration office at quitting time Wednesday, Eileen Freter walked smack into a clump of jostling, obscenity-shouting union activists -- and history.She and her 12,000 fellow SSA workers at the Woodlawn complex are a focus of one of the biggest raids in American history, and an important experiment in union democracy.For Ms. Freter and many like her, a fight between two unions over the right to represent federal employees is little more than a rear-guard action in a doomed cause.

Activists from two competing unions handed out leaflets, shouted slogans, called each other names and occasionally shoved each other in front of the Social Security Administration headquarters yesterday, as the nation's biggest union-vs.-union battle moved into high gear.Declaring their differing allegiances with white T-shirts or red caps, dozens of members of the two federal-employee unions clustered around one of the buildings in the Woodlawn complex at yesterday's 3 p.m. shift change.