Union Members

More than 500 people, many of them trade union members from Baltimore, crammed a Maryland Port Administration public hearing last night to endorse or object to leasing port property to developers who want to build a 54,000-seat auto racing stadium near Key Bridge in Pasadena.Building the stadium would mean jobs for them, said carpenters, bricklayers and electricians.Pasadena residents who have adamantly opposed the track did not attend in the numbers expected, apparently believing that Anne Arundel County Executive Janet S. Owens made their case for them last week when she called the 100-acre site unsuitable.

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.

Crown Central Petroleum Corp. said yesterday that it is reducing output at its two Texas refineries because of low oil and gasoline prices.Baltimore-based Crown said it has trimmed crude-oil processing by 10 percent at its Tyler, Texas, plant, which can process 52,000 barrels of oil per day.And it said its Pasadena, Texas, refinery, the site of a long and costly union lockout, would continue processing 70,000 barrels a day -- 30 percent below its capacity of...

Howard County and police union officials have ended a contract impasse with an agreement that brings officers a step closer to receiving one of the biggest pay increases in recent memory.Both sides had anticipated the impasse would last about two months because of arbitration, but said they wanted to end it earlier to be able to hire 13 officers from other jurisdictions. The department is in tough competition with other regional police agencies -- some of which have raised their officers' pay -- and would not advertise the positions until a salary structure was finalized.

Political leaders and union workers shared their views at a public hearing last night on the proposed expansion of Lehigh Portland Cement Co. in Union Bridge.About 60 people attended the Maryland Department of the Environment hearing at the Union Bridge Community Center. The department has given tentative approval for three air quality permits for the plant, but a series of public hearings are required before the permits are issued.Most of the questions at the hearing came from union members concerned about their jobs.

An effort by major-league umpires to force early negotiations for a new labor contract disintegrated yesterday when they collectively rescinded the resignations they had submitted to Major League Baseball earlier this month.The move, which came late in the afternoon after a setback in a court challenge in Philadelphia, left the union membership severely split and one-third of its members without jobs. It appears too late for some of the umpires to regain their positions because the National and American leagues had already hired 25 new umpires.

An arbitrator in the summer-long impasse between the Baltimore Teachers Union and the city recommended yesterday that teachers receive 4 percent raises in the first year of a proposed two-year contract, maintain current health care options and that elementary school instructors set aside extra time each week to prepare for classes.The current contract between the BTU and the school system expired June 30.Union officials said last night that they will reluctantly ask members to accept the proposal, which includes a 3 percent raise in the second year.

MARIETTA, Ga. -- Lockheed Martin Corp., the Bethesda-based defense contractor, averted a strike at two plants yesterday after federal mediators ordered the union representing workers to cancel the walkout and meet with the company Monday.Workers represented by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers rejected separate contracts this week at plants in Marietta, where Lockheed produces the C-130J military transport plane and the F-22 fighter plane, and Palmdale, Calif.

About 150 union members, Baltimore residents and environmentalists rallied outside a Hawkins Point medical incinerator yesterday to protest a stalemate in contract negotiations that has left 70 workers unemployed since the company locked them out in June.The protesters began gathering outside the incinerator at 3200 Hawkins Point Road, owned by Phoenix Services Inc., about 4: 30 p.m. The incinerator is on the southern edge of the city, just north of the Anne Arundel County line.The rally, organized by the Metropolitan Baltimore Council AFL-CIO Unions, drew supporters from the United Auto Workers, the Communications Workers of America and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, among other unions.

Glen Alvin Snyder Sr., a longtime union official who retired in 1970 as assistant vice president of the Packing House Workers of America, died Thursday of cardiac arrest at his Bayside Beach home. He was 93.Mr. Snyder became a union organizer in the 1930s while working as a butcher in Washington for the Sanitary food market, which became part of the Safeway grocery chain."They were paying him a dollar an hour for 40 hours," said his son, Glen A. Snyder Jr. of Pasadena. "But then when it became Safeway, they wanted to pay him $40 for 50 hours.

Baltimore's 1,600 firefighters and fire officers voted overwhelmingly Wednesday night to take five unpaid furlough days before June in order to help the city close a $60 million budget gap. The city's agreement with the two unions also calls for a pay freeze in the next fiscal year, but union members will be spared threatened pay cuts. The deal is worth $2.9 million to the city. Bob Sledgeski, head of the 1,300-member Baltimore Firefighters' Local 734, said the agreement passed by a 2-to-1 vote.

No raises for fire union members, Dixon says Baltimore City fire union members will not receive the pay raise that they'd hoped for, Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon announced Thursday. The unions had been unable to negotiate a contract with the city and argued before an arbitrator that they should receive a 2 percent pay increase this year. The arbitrator ruled against the unions. "We not only lost, we got killed," said Capt. Stephan Fugate, the head of the fire officers' union. The city also has asked the fire unions to make current year reductions, and Fugate said that the arbitrator's decision means it is more likely that his union will negotiate those reductions with the city rather then seeking arbitration.

RON CAREY, 72 Former Teamsters president Ron Carey, the former Teamsters president who pledged to rid the union of mob corruption but was later forced from leadership in a financial scandal, died Thursday at New York Hospital Medical Center of Queens of complications from lung cancer, his son Daniel Carey said. After a stint in the Marines, Mr. Carey joined the Teamsters in 1956 while working as a driver for United Parcel Service. He became president of a local union post in New York in 1967 on a platform of challenging corrupt leadership in the organization.

Maryland Transportation Authority Police are conducting an internal investigation of a civilian employee who has been accused of misconduct while working a separate job as a bartender at Baltimore's Fraternal Order of Police Lodge, said MdTA police Chief Marcus Brown. The employee is a retired city officer who performs background checks for prospective MdTA officers. "It is a personnel issue," Brown said in a telephone interview. "In any case that we receive an allegation of misconduct, we'll be doing an administrative inquiry.

Two of the nation's largest labor unions have struck confidential agreements with large employers that give the companies the right to designate which of their locations, and how many workers, the unions can seek to organize. The agreements are raising questions about union transparency and workers' rights. A summary document put together by the unions says it is critical to the success of the partnership "that we honor the confidentiality and not publicly disclose the existence of these agreements."

Giant Food and Safeway supermarkets and the union representing 23,000 area grocery workers reached an agreement yesterday on a tentative labor contract, union officials said. The area's two largest grocers and the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union locals 27 and 400 worked into the early morning hours yesterday to hammer out a new agreement, according to the union officials. Union members will vote on the contract tomorrow. Buddy Mays, president of Local 27, would not say whether the union would recommend a vote in favor of the contract.

Union leaders representing workers in contract negotiations with Giant Food and Safeway said yesterday that they are bracing members for a strike as talks with the area's two largest grocers stall. Safeway and Giant Food, meanwhile, have begun advertising for temporary workers as contracts covering 23,000 workers near expiration March 31. The companies said hiring additional staffing is standard during contract negotiations. Safeway said in a newspaper advertisement that the hiring of temporary employees was in "preparation for a possible labor dispute."

DETROIT -- Negotiators for the United Automobile Workers and General Motors have agreed on the framework for a health care trust, GM's key demand in talks on a new contract, people with direct knowledge of the private discussions said yesterday. But the two sides face a long weekend of bargaining on other matters, such as pay and job guarantees, before negotiations are completed, they added. GM and the UAW have tentatively sorted out the details for a voluntary employee benefit association.

Heading into the final stretch of their campaigns, the leading candidates for mayor and City Council president rallied their volunteers and worked the crowds yesterday as the strategy shifted from putting out a message to getting out the vote. With mere hours to go until Tuesday's Democratic primary, candidates kept tight schedules - darting from Ashburton to Pigtown to Cherry Hill - and rallied their strongest supporters so they would be energized in the waning days of the campaign. Many of the state's most powerful leaders - including Gov. Martin O'Malley - shared a dais in Ashburton to support City Council President Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake, who is running for a full term against community activist Michael Sarbanes and Councilman Kenneth N. Harris Sr. "We've got to work through tired," Rawlings-Blake told a large crowd of union volunteers who gathered in front of her childhood home on Sequoia Avenue.

The Annapolis Police Department's union and the city will head back to the bargaining table, after union members overwhelmingly rejected the city's first salary and benefit proposal. "We are tired of working shorthanded! We are tired of the lack of recruiting efforts by the city! We are just tired!" read a flier distributed by the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 400. On Thursday the union turned down the city's offer of a 2 percent cost-of-living increase. It is seeking 8 percent.