Union

Researchers hailed the Supreme Court ruling Wednesday that bans the patenting of human DNA, saying it would expand access to genetic testing for disease at lower cost to patients. In a unanimous decision, the justices said Myriad Genetics did not have exclusive rights to the BRCA 1 and BRCA 2 genes that are linked to significantly greater risk for breast cancer and thus should not be the only company allowed to test for it. "Myriad did not create anything," Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for his fellow justices.

A 19-year-old woman was injured in a lightning strike at the Plumpton Park Zoo in Rising Sun as severe weather moved through the area Thursday morning, according to Cecil County Emergency Services Director Richard Brooks. Emergency personnel were called to the zoo in the 1400 block of Telegraph Road about 9:08 a.m. and found a group of bystanders caring for the woman, Brooks said. The bystanders told the medics that the woman had been standing near a large tree when the lightning struck.

A bill that would require contractors doing business with the city to give preference to local union employees has been yanked by the city councilman who proposed it. Henry said he plans to change the wording of the bill after hearing from contractors who said they already hire locally but not from union halls. The bill was intended to boost employment by increasing job training and opportunities for city residents, Henry said. But it alarmed many contractors who saw it as a union power grab that would drive up wages.

A caucus of the Baltimore Teachers Union has conducted its own survey which concluded that, of the sample participants, city teachers have been overwhelmingly dissatisfied with the union contract that is set to expire this month. According to the survey, conducted by the Educators for Democratic Schools, of the roughly 200 teachers polled, only 11 percent of respondents said they would vote for the contract--passed in 2010, and hailed as the most progressive in the country for its pay-for-performance structure--if faced with the decision again.

Realignment in Major League Baseball, which could move the Orioles out of the American League East one day, was touched on Thursday during the players' annual spring meeting with their union chief. But because it is only conceptual, not a lot of time was dedicated to it, according to new union chief Michael Weiner , who spent nearly two hours with the Orioles. "On-field issues are very important to the players, so we mentioned a number of those issues. My understanding is that realignment is not a front-burner issue," said Weiner, the union's former general counsel who took over as executive director from Don Fehr last year.

Councilman Bill Henry's proposal to exclude non-union laborers from working on city-funded construction projects is already causing great concern among the small business community, particularly for those of us whose companies are black or minority owned. Mr. Henry introduced a bill March 22 that calls for mandatory community partnership agreements (more commonly called project labor agreements or PLAs) on all taxpayer-supported city construction projects of more than $5 million.

The International Longshoremen's Association and the U.S. Maritime Alliance have agreed to meet with a federal mediator before the expiration of the contract extension at midnight on Dec. 29. Talks between the union representing nearly 15,000 dockworkers from Maine to Texas and the alliance representing shipping companies and port operators, stalled last week as both sides traded accusations. The union represents about 1,400 Baltimore longshoremen. The major sticking point is a container royalty payment made to the union and its members based on the weight of cargo.

The union that represents 1,700 Baltimore County employees in corrections, the 911 center, sanitation and animal control has ratified a new contract that includes a 2 percent raise but leaves a dispute over emergency leave unresolved. "Members decided to ratify the contract and get the raise," said John Ripley, president of the Baltimore Federation of Public Employees. "The impasse we have been fighting for 18 months will just be taken up with the next administration. We are not happy with this administration."

Reps. Roscoe G. Bartlett and Chris Van Hollen are planning to take service members past and present to President Barack Obama's State of the Union Address Tuesday evening. Bartlett, a Western Maryland Republican, and Van Hollen, a Montgomery County Democrat, are among some two dozen lawmakers participating in the bipartisan effort organized by the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs and the House National Guard and Reserve Components Caucus to help focus attention on veterans' needs.

WASHINGTON -- President Bush's new campaign ads, which feature fleeting images of firefighters removing the remains of victims from the attack on the World Trade Center, have ignited a firestorm of criticism from the union representing New York firefighters. The president of the International Association of Fire Fighters, Harold Schaitberger, called the ads "disgraceful" and "disgusting," while the union's executive board passed a resolution accusing the president of "trading on the heroism of those 343 FDNY members who fell during the terrorist attacks ... to win sympathy for his campaign."

Baltimore school union leaders questioned the need for an outside firm to conduct a national search for the next permanent superintendent Thursday as the school board began the process of hiring a consultant. Neil Duke, chair of the city school board, said the district issued a request for proposals for an executive search firm Thursday, and it plans to select a company by July. Once the firm is selected, Duke said, the district will solidify a timeline for a national search. In the email, Duke said that "the stakes are high" in looking for the next permanent superintendent given the progress under city schools CEO Andrés Alonso, who will step down June 30. "We know we need a leader who appreciates Baltimore's opportunities and challenges," Duke said.

Teachers and others concerned about county funding of the 2014 school budget were expected to stage another protest at Tuesday night's Harford County Council meeting in Bel Air. With time running out in the budget review process, the 1 percent pay increase the teachers union negotiated earlier this year with the Harford County Board of Education appears to be in jeopardy after Harford County Executive David Craig declined to fund the entire increase...

The Baltimore County police union and some Dundalk residents are protesting a plan to move the North Point Police Precinct from a centrally located building to an outlying post in the northern part of the district on Eastern Boulevard. Critics say the change could mean officers will take longer to respond to emergencies and keep some away from their posts in the southeastern part of the county, though the police chief said the new location offers better access to major roads. The issue is playing out amid a larger debate over the county's plan to sell the North Point Government Center on Merritt Boulevard and Holabird Avenue, which is now home to the precinct.

Two unions said Friday that they have ended a nearly six-year call to boycott the Sheraton Baltimore City Center Hotel, a move that came as workers ratified a new bargaining agreement with management. The unions, Unite Here Local 7 and Local 37 of the International Union of Operating Engineers, said the new agreement covers 130 workers and includes health insurance, a 401(k) retirement plan and retroactive wage increases reaching back one year. Tipped employees are due raises of 15 cents to 45 cents an hour, while non-tipped employees' raises will be 30 cents to 90 cents per hour, the unions said.

One of the more enjoyable aspects of my public career was an excellent relationship with public safety unions. Law enforcement, fire and EMT groups were supportive of my races for the state legislature, Congress and governor. Although not unheard of, such consistent support made for some uneasy moments when national labor organizations (almost exclusively associated with Democratic candidates) were informed about public safety union support for "that Republican Ehrlich. " From a personal perspective, it was easy to separate the unique nature of public safety's job description (public protection being the No. 1 job of government)

Marietta English, longtime leader of the Baltimore Teachers Union, was re-elected to another term, the organization announced in a release Wednesday.  According to the release, English was re-elected president by teachers, paraprofessionals, and school-related personnel. It will be her seventh term--one she served as president of the teacher's chapter--which lasts three years. “I'm proud to have received the support of Baltimore's paraprofessionals, school-related personnel and teachers,” English said in a statement.

Was that a State of the Union address or was it President Barack Obama's first big campaign speech of 2012? It certainly sounded like the latter, but given the state of Washington, what else could we expect? His opening lines, a tribute to the soldiers who returned home from Iraq, was a reminder of a promise kept from his first campaign - and it was followed by a reference to the killing of Osama bin Laden under his watch, and that by a dig at how little has been accomplished by a deeply divided Congress.

IMAGINE a local teachers' union president who sees many positives in private schools, promotes charter schools, even runs seminars for teachers interested in starting a public charter.Just as radical, consider a union leader convinced that professionalism and rigorous teacher-to-teacher peer review need to replace protection by tenure and assignment by seniority. A leader who believes teachers unions should be more like craft guilds of professionals than simply defense attorneys for members in trouble.

The Baltimore Teacher's Union has called for the district hold off on attaching penalties to schools' performance on the the new  Common Core assessments, citing insufficient professional development and resources to implement the new high-stakes curriculum. In a news release, BTU's President Marietta English echoed the call of one of the nation's largest teachers union, the American Federation of Teachers, which called for a moratorium on penalties associated with the standardized testing that will measure a radically new curricula being rolled out across the nation, including Maryland, next year.