Union Members

A majority of union members now work for the government, partly because layoffs in the recession plunged the private sector's union levels to a record low. Local, state and government workers make up 51.5 percent of all union members - becoming the majority of organized labor for the first time, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. The shift shows the difficulty unions face in trying to revive a movement that has declined since its peak in the 1950s. And it undermines the traditional ability of unions to push private sector wages higher.

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.

More than 250 union members and supporters, including Baltimore Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke, packed a General Assembly hearing room in Annapolis for a rally on labor issues last night.Speakers vowed to support legislation that would allow unions to bargain contracts for state government workers, but fight "right to work" proposals that make union membership voluntary.In urging support for collective bargaining rights for state workers, state Labor Secretary Eugene A. Conti Jr. said, "It's time to end the plantation."

With a little more than two weeks to go before a contract extension between East Coast and Gulf dockworkers and port operators expires, the federal mediator said Thursday that progress is being made toward a long-term settlement. George Cohen, director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, said the International Longshoremen's Association representing 14,500 union members and United States Maritime Alliance, which represents 14 ports and shipping companies, met between Tuesday and Thursday, and have agreed "that the negotiations will continue under our auspices.

In a 3-month old labor dispute, painters union members picketed yesterday a Columbia office building where a Landover-based contractor used nonunion painters.About 60 workers in the local International Brotherhood of Painters Inc. protested for two hours against L. A. Mangum and Son Inc. outside the Ryland Group Inc. building in the 11000 block of Broken Land Parkway in Town Center. L. A. Mangum, a contractor that employed union members for 32 years, was doing painting at the building.The dispute began when L. A. Mangum declined to sign a May 15 agreement giving union workers with a 40-cent increase in their hourly wages.

WASHINGTON -- Labor union members who object to some of the political causes and candidates their leaders support lost out yesterday in a plea to the Supreme Court for the right to hold back part of their dues.The court, without comment, turned aside the appeal of a Marylander, Kathryn A. Kidwell of Greenbelt, seeking to gain for union members the same option that non-union workers have to protest use of their dues for causes they do not favor.Ms. Kidwell, 46, is a secretary in the sales and marketing department of Amtrak at Union Station here.

Talks between the Bond Distributing Co. and union leaders of Brewery Workers Local 1010 have broken off, and 93 beer truck drivers and warehouse workers on strike since Aug. 11 appear to have lost their jobs.Norman R. Buchsbaum, a labor attorney for Bond, said the company has hired workers to permanently replace the strikers and cannot by law fire them to give the jobs back to the union members, even if other issues in the strike are settled.The news, given to union leaders during negotiations Tuesday, prompted the union to immediately suspend talks, said union President Ray Machlinski.

The union representing about 1,500 Baltimore County government workers kicked off its campaign for higher pay last night, calling for salary increases similar to those given police and firefighters last spring.During a rally on the steps of the Old Courthouse in Towson, the county's Federation of Public Employees urged the seven-member County Council last night to endorse its "bill of rights," which includes the right to job security, union membership and a safe workplace."If we're going to get the respect that we need, and that we deserve, we're going to have to stand together," James L. Clark, the union president, told about 35 members gathered for the rally.

The Baltimore Teachers Union ratified a new one-year contract yesterday that provides pay raises ranging from $300 to $2,000 -- the first increases in three years."

In an odd twist to what otherwise was a low-key affair, police and lawyers yesterday kept union members from Crown Central Petroleum Corp.'s annual meeting.A local of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers union in Pasadena, Texas, has been locked out of Crown's biggest refinery since Feb. 5 when talks broke down over a company proposal to save the company $2.5 million a year in labor costs. The proposal called for laying off about 29 workers of the 260 to 270 OCAW members in the plant, plus cuts in the role seniority plays in promotions and layoffs.

A Baltimore County union representing about 800 public employees filed an unfair labor practices complaint against the county Thursday, asking for an independent investigation after working for five months without a contract. Members of Local 921 of the American Federation of State, Municipal and County Employees have been without a contract since July and say the county administration has not negotiated in good faith to reach an agreement. The union's members include heavy-equipment operators, truck and snowplow drivers, and sewage workers.

Southwest Airlines and the union representing its 8,500 ground employees have asked the National Mediation Board to jump start contract talks after 14 months of negotiations failed to produce an deal. Transport Workers Union Local 555 called the stalled talks "disappointing," given the fact that the airline posted the highest second-quarter profit in its history. Negotiations began on July 12 last year. "Southwest has proposed changes in our collective bargaining agreement which are concessionary in nature and entirely unacceptable to our members," union president Charles Cerf said in a statement.

An image of Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's face on a roll of toilet paper recently circulated on the Internet has sparked turmoil within the local firefighters union whose members created it. The image, and another of Fire Chief James Clack's face in a toilet bowl, were determined to have been created and distributed online last month by two members of the Baltimore Firefighters Local 734 union who are now being disciplined, president Rick...

A bill from Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz that could have reduced some workers' pensions stalled in the County Council Monday after pressure from unions that complained the bill undermined labor rights. The 4-3 vote to table the legislation came after union members and state labor leaders rallied outside the county courthouse, saying the bill sidestepped contract negotiations for members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. The bill would have stopped AFSCME members from using overtime in their pension calculations, which they have done for more than 30 years.

Amid optimism and national acclaim, the Baltimore City school system and its teachers union signed a landmark contract one year ago, tying teacher pay to performance rather than seniority. Now, some in the system are, understandably, growing frustrated that crucial details remain to be worked out and that the system has repeatedly missed deadlines for doing so. But that is no sign that the two sides should give up. There's really no alternative to making the current agreement work, and if that means school system officials and union leaders have to double down on writing the rules clarifying teachers' responsibilities and rewards under the new contract language, so be it. The city's historic three-year pact was aimed at recognizing the best teachers and giving them financial incentives to boost their students' classroom performance.

With state lawmakers preparing to make decisions in the coming weeks on budget cuts and pension reform, thousands of union members marched Monday evening on Annapolis to send a message. The marchers were met by a counterprotest, organized by tea party activists, of several dozen taxpayers asking for deeper state budget cuts. The union group was large enough to cut off traffic in downtown Annapolis. Chanting "keep the promise" and "enough is enough," they decried efforts by Gov. Martin O'Malley and legislators to change employee contributions to their retirement plans, a move that officials say would save the state an estimated $100 million next year.

Verizon Communications Inc., the telecommunications giant, is poised for a showdown with unions that represent 75,000 of its workers from Maine to Virginia in a contract negotiation clouded by economic uncertainties and workers' fears of layoffs and cuts in health care benefits. This week, union members voted to authorize their leadership to call a strike without further vote if an agreement on a contract is not reached by Aug. 2, the expiration date of the current contract. A strike would likely slow directory assistance and seriously delay customer service and repair and installation work for thousands of Verizon customers, said Candice Johnson, a spokeswoman for the Communications Workers of America, which represents most of the workers.

Hospital workers, who staged a one-day strike last week, launched a new tactic yesterday, picketing at the Johns Hopkins University campus. The university is a separate corporation from Johns Hopkins Hospital, with whom the workers are negotiating, but university President William R. Brody is a hospital trustee, and union members said they hoped to meet with him. Over the next few weeks, union members plan to picket at the offices of other trustees of...

About 60 members from two local chapters of the Service Employees International Union held a rally Thursday afternoon at Howard and Lexington streets to support efforts to save the old Read's drugstore building, the site of a 1955 lunch counter sit-in by African-American college students. Preservationists and civil rights groups want to save the building as a landmark, while an out-of-town developer seeks to raze the structure to make way for a $150 million development. The protestors came from SEIU Local 1199, Maryland's largest health care union, and Local 32BJ, representing building service workers.

In a year of tight funding, Baltimore County's teachers union and some school board members are questioning Superintendent Joe A. Hairston's budget priorities, which would cut the number of teachers in schools but increase administrative spending. The school system would spend $6.1 million more on new technology while eliminating nearly 200 teaching positions next year if the proposed budget is approved. The school system, which places a priority on spending for technology, is asking the Baltimore County Council to fund improvements including a $1.6 million expansion for wireless Internet access in some schools.