Labor Leaders

NEW YORK -- Labor leaders were conspicuous in their absence at his annual reception for the maritime industry, but Maryland Gov. William Donald Schaefer said he is optimistic they will be with him when it counts for the Port of Baltimore.About 150 executives of ship lines, railroads and other transportation companies attended yesterday's Port of Baltimore luncheon at the Downtown Athletic Club, hosted by the Maryland Port Administration.The same event last year drew most of the port's major labor leaders, including John Bowers, president of the International Longshoremen's Association.

Baltimore County labor leaders plan to fight legislation by County Executive Kevin Kamenetz that would change the way public workers appeal county decisions on their retirement benefits, saying the bill would stack the deck against employees. The bill, pending before the County Council, would give cases involving benefit disputes to administrative law judges appointed by the county executive and make other changes to the appeal process. Those cases now are heard by the Board of Appeals, whose members are appointed by the County Council.

After a 30-year estrangement, in which union leaders shunned academics as too far to the left and the liberal intelligentsia scorned big labor as part of the establishment, many academics are forging a new alliance with the revived labor movement.Academics are counseling students to become union organizers and are donating time to teach courses to union officials.Cornell University professors held a conference with the AFL-CIO on how to do more organizing, while many sociology professors are revamping their courses to focus more on labor's role in society.

When union members gathered outside the Baltimore County courthouse recently, many waved signs depicting County Executive Kevin Kamenetz, some referring to him as a bully or cheater. They were protesting a bill proposed by Kamenetz that would have cut overtime wages from AFSCME workers' retirement benefits - an outcry that last month helped deal the county executive the first legislative defeat of his term. More than a year into his tenure, Kamenetz has had an uneven relationship with Baltimore County's public employee unions as his administration seeks new agreements with several labor groups.

Against strong opposition from Gov. Parris N. Glendening, business and labor leaders have been working quietly in Annapolis to win the legislature's go-ahead on a plan to pump dredge material into a deep area of the Chesapeake Bay known as the Deep Trough.The site was one of five initially proposed by the Maryland Port Administration for the unpopular task of disposing of mud and silt scooped out of the state's 126 miles of shipping channels.But shortly before the 1996 General Assembly convened last month, Governor Glendening ordered state officials to scrap Deep Trough as a disposal site.

The money is so tight in Anne Arundel that $36,250 -- about .005 percent of the county's annual budget -- has become a matter of political principle in a simmering labor dispute.County Executive John G. Gary, who vowed that there would be no raises this year for the county's 3,500 employees, has by his own authority changed the job descriptions of 13 workers. The result is annual increases totaling $36,250 for four county attorneys, four clerks, three planners, a civil engineer and a billing supervisor.

SILVER SPRING -- Just 100 yards outside the Capital Beltway, they train Joe College to be Joe Hill.Students at the National Labor College learn about union organizing, from the work of Hill, whose 1915 execution inspired a legendary song, to the 55-year career of George Meany.The college is the only school in the United States to offer bachelor's degrees exclusively in labor studies. Its first class, numbering 100, will graduate in July."To be a responsible labor leader, the seat of your pants isn't enough anymore," says college President Susan Schurman, a hard-charging former bus driver and union organizer with a doctorate in education.

The Senate voted yesterday to block work rule changes proposed by the Bush administration that labor leaders say could deprive up to 8 million American workers - from nurses to firefighters to middle managers - of overtime rights. The 54-45 vote was a rare victory for Democrats in a Congress with Republican majorities in both houses, and they didn't hesitate to crow. "I'm proud that 53 of my colleagues joined me today to stop the administration from stripping overtime protection from 8 million workers," said Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, a Maryland Democrat and co-sponsor of the amendment.

Time is running out on County Executive John G. Gary's plan to recast Anne Arundel County's $750 million retirement system.The County Council last night was poised to propose a slew of amendments to what has become the most complex bill the Republican administration has introduced or that the Republican-majority council has considered.Those would come on the heels of 20 proposed amendments from the administration. The council was to consider them late last night.Gary said during his 1994 campaign that he would cut personnel costs, which account for 75 percent of Anne Arundel's budget.

The leaders of the AFL-CIO said this weekend that they would continue pushing union members to campaign aggressively for Vice President Al Gore, even though he has reiterated his support for President Clinton's trade deal with China. Persuading Congress to reject the China accord has become organized labor's No. 1 legislative goal this year, and some labor leaders are voicing fears that Gore's support for the deal could cause many rank-and-file union members to sour on the vice president.

- Delaware's surprising first-place finish in a fierce battle for federal school reform dollars highlights a tension in President Barack Obama's education agenda: He favors big change but also values peace with the labor unions that sometimes resist his goals. Obama often has challenged unions - even voicing support last month for a Rhode Island school board vote to fire all the teachers at a struggling high school - but his administration built the $4 billion Race to the Top contest in a way that rewarded applications crafted in consultation with labor leaders.

Peter J. Moralis, a retired labor leader who had been area director for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFL-CIO) international's Maryland and District of Columbia district, died of a heart attack Sunday at his Hunt Valley home. He was 80. Born in Athens, Greece, the son of refugees from Asia Minor, Mr. Moralis was 40 days old when he immigrated with his family to the United States, landing at Ellis Island in New York Harbor. The family then traveled to Baltimore, where they resided in a home on Reisterstown Road.

WASHINGTON -Sen. Arlen Specter has been told by several of his most faithful GOP backers in Pennsylvania that they'll abandon their support if he votes for a union-rights bill working its way through Congress, an ultimatum that carries significance both for the measure and for Specter's re-election run next year. The threat has come in unusually blunt terms at a time when some Republicans in the state are already furious at the five-term senator for backing the economic stimulus package.

CHICAGO -- The United Auto Workers' tentative contract with General Motors Corp. includes unprecedented promises to secure the jobs of thousands of workers for years, while requiring GM to pay out at least $35 billion in health care benefits and establishing a new pay tier for thousands of new workers, according to the UAW. Yesterday, local labor leaders endorsed the contract, which includes promises from GM to build current and new models at 16 U.S....

General Motors Corp. said yesterday that it will build the industry's first hybrid light-truck transmission at its manufacturing plant in northeastern Baltimore County, offering fresh hope to some of the 500 autoworkers still looking for jobs after the world's largest automaker closed its aged van assembly factory in Southeast Baltimore last May. Although the $118 million investment will add no more than 87 jobs initially, the announcement was considered significant...

SDEROT, Israel -- From the time he could first vote, Shimon Sinai has put his trust in Israel's leading right-wing party, the Likud, believing that Israel needed to be tough with the Palestinians, be strong on defense and embrace free markets. But when Israel holds parliamentary elections in March, the 42-year-old owner of a soup kitchen for the poor in this hardscrabble southern Israeli town plans to cast his vote for the newest, most talked-about political star in Israel, the Labor Party's Amir Peretz.

The County Council last night came to the defense of beleaguered public employees for the first time in months, a signal that its members think the Gary administration's personnel reforms may be too aggressive.The council, criticized by labor leaders recently for cleaving to the Republican administration's cost-cutting labor policy, was poised to formally ban Anne Arundel Fire Department captains and lieutenants from the union that has represented them for 26 years.Instead, council members approved unanimously four amendments written by Councilman William C. Mulford II, an Annapolis Republican, that would allow the 100 displaced officers to form new bargaining units.

The AFL-CIO kicked off a campaign yesterday to highlight labor's argument that the right of workers to join unions is being unfairly undercut by fierce employer hostility and by laws that labor leaders say do little to protect workers seeking to unionize.The labor federation has begun the campaign in an effort to embarrass fervently anti-union employers and to pressure Congress to strengthen labor laws by, for example, increasing penalties for employers who dismiss workers for supporting unions.

The new head of Israel's Labor Party declared yesterday that he intends to pull out of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's governing coalition, setting the stage for a period of political disarray that could bog down Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking efforts for months. "We will inform the prime minister that we wish to separate," Amir Peretz, best known for his leadership of Israel's biggest trade federation, said hours after his come-from-behind victory over veteran statesman Shimon Peres in the contest for the party leadership.