Union Members

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.

About 450 workers at the Martin Marietta Corp. complex in Middle River are scheduled to vote this morning on wage concessions that the company says are needed to safeguard their jobs.The workers at the Aero & Naval Systems division are members of Local 738 of the United Auto Workers. Most of them are involved in the production of thrust reversers, which reverse the flow of jet engine exhausts and are used on commercial jetliners as brakes.Martin is asking the union members to forgo scheduled quarterly cost-of-living wage adjustments next month.

The Baltimore Teachers Union, long a bit player in city school affairs, suddenly is in a lead role, thrust there by thousands of members who delivered a message yesterday: We're fed up. Nearly three-quarters of the BTU's member teachers voted at the Convention Center to reject the city's proposal that they accept a 3.5 percent pay cut to help ease a school budget crisis. After the votes were counted in early evening, about two dozen teachers stood in a circle in front of the building, held hands and sang "We Shall Overcome" and its education version, "We Will Teach the Children."

There will be no food fight.By nearly a 3-to-1 ratio, union members yesterday approved a collective bargaining agreement with Giant Food Inc. and averted a strike with the region's dominant supermarket chain.But after more than six months of negotiations, the tally -- 1,816 for, 669 against -- failed to reflect reservations among members of Local 27 of the United Food & Commercial Workers International Union."It wasn't something that everyone was happy about. Certainly I wasn't happy about it," said local President Buddy Mays.

If ever there was a company crafted to produce labor harmony, it was United Parcel Service. It's where every delivery driver has a crack at rising to chief executive, just like the current boss. Where about half the full-time union members own the company's steadily rising stock. Where chocolate-brown uniforms bestow status and salaries far higher than the competition's.But last week, UPS looked as fractious as any airline or automaker struggling to keep down labor costs. Management and Teamsters union members are swearing to out-bloody and outlast each other in the company's first nationwide strike.

DEARBORN, Mich. - On another 19-hour campaign day through four states where the race is nip and tuck, Vice President Al Gore briefly resurrected the name of Bill Clinton yesterday as he sought to energize blacks in Philadelphia and union members here and said that tomorrow's election is not only about material prosperity but "prosperity of the spirit." "Thank you for allowing Bill Clinton and me to bring change," Gore said from the pulpit of Morris Brown African Methodist Episcopal Church in North Philadelphia.

The striking Teamster truck drivers of Local 639 moved their picket line to Reading, Pa., yesterday, hoping to slow deliveries of supplies headed toward Baltimore-Washington area Giant Food stores.But their plan backfired.Instead, they angered their fellow Teamsters in Pennsylvania and failed to disrupt what appears to be a steady stream of goods flowing to Giant's stores from outside suppliers.The 320 truck drivers went on strike nearly two weeks ago, largely in an effort to get Giant Food Inc. to agree not to hire wholesale distributors, a big issue because the grocery chain has plans to open 40 new stores in southern New Jersey and Pennsylvania in the next several years.

Despite months of refusing to bargain with the city over a new contract, Baltimore police union negotiators announced yesterday that they have reached a tentative agreement that provides no pay raises and increases health care costs for their members. The 3,300 members of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 3 must vote on whether to approve or reject the contract that the union's bargaining team hammered out with city negotiators. Police union members will receive the deal's terms next week and are expected to vote at a meeting in mid-August, said FOP President Dan Fickus.

Thousands of angry Baltimore schoolteachers and aides voted overwhelmingly to reject a 3.5 percent cut in salaries yesterday - a decision that could trigger even deeper pay cuts across the city school system or possible mass layoffs to ease a financial crisis that has been simmering for months. Nearly three-quarters of the more than 5,200 Baltimore Teachers Union members who cast ballots at the Baltimore Convention Center voted against a proposal that would have helped the system meet its budget goals this school year and still pay down part of a crushing $58 million cumulative deficit.

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.