Labor Leaders

The County Council topped months of labor strife yesterday by giving the Gary administration a clear victory over Anne Arundel's two largest public safety unions, rejecting all but labor's smallest demands.The binding decision sets the terms of a one-year agreement with more than 1,000 county police officers and firefighters. It may also drag the council into what has been a high-profile fight between County Executive John G. Gary and public-safety employees in recent months.Indeed, most council members find themselves the target of union wrath that until now was directed at a Republican administration that has made cutting personnel costs a top priority.

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.

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.

WASHINGTON - John Sweeney, the president of the AFL-CIO, chuckled as he recounted the frantic phone message he received from a concerned neighbor. "Have you seen those self-checkout machines in our grocery store?" she asked the labor leader, whose federation represents 13 million union workers and who shops for groceries at Giant Food in Bethesda's Westwood Shopping Center. Sweeney's eyes widened for effect as he quoted the caller: "What's going to happen to all those workers?" Sweeney - who said he has not used the self-scan gizmos that popped up in his store last month - put his neighbor's mind at ease.

JERUSALEM -- Yitzhak Rabin says his priorities as Israel's next prime minister would be peace negotiations to bring about Palestinian self-rule in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, and an end to construction of "political settlements" there.Mr. Rabin, the victorious Labor Party leader in the national election Tuesday, added that he hopes in the process to improve relations with the United States, which have been seriously strained over the settlements issue."Every penny that goes to them is a blow to the things that are most important to Israel," he told a television interviewer last night, referring to settlements not explicitly needed for Israeli security.

In the first major fund-raiser of her campaign for governor in 2002, Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend attracted about 130 people paying $1,000 each for dinner at a Little Italy restaurant last night.The event was billed as a joint salute to Townsend by business and labor and drew leaders of several private- and public-sector unions, as well as prominent Baltimore business people."It's wonderful to have all these friends come together," Townsend said, taking a break from shaking hands and posing for pictures.

JERUSALEM - Israel's beleaguered Labor Party chose as its new leader last night Amram Mitzna, a retired army general who has pledged to restart peace negotiations with the Palestinians and dismantle Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He will be the party's candidate for prime minister in elections scheduled for Jan. 28. Mitzna, the 57-year-old mayor of Haifa, was selected by party members over two other candidates, current party chairman and former Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer and parliament member Haim Ramon.

The whispers are growing louder.After reviewing County Executive John G. Gary's strict budget plan for the coming fiscal year, which he presented last week with warnings of future hardship, powerful local constituencies are plotting to kill a sacred cow: Anne Arundel's tax ceiling.No organized movement has formed to engineer a ballot drive that could repeal the anti-tax measure. But for the first time since 1992, when 70 percent of county voters approved the tax limit, labor leaders and education advocates are talking seriously about waging a political fight against it."

John J. Sweeney and Andrew L. Stern emerged as leaders of organized labor's fastest-growing union. The first was from an older generation, known for his consensus-style leadership. The second has a reputation of being a risk-taker. When Sweeney was president of the Service Employees International Union, he hired Stern and the two worked closely for about a decade as they tried to bolster the country's labor movement. Stern, 54, has since become president of the fast-growing SEIU. And Sweeney, 71, heads organized labor's umbrella organization, the AFL-CIO.

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.