Union Representatives

"Ride The Ducks" sightseeing rides - recognized by their distinctive amphibious vehicles and passengers blowing duck calls - ceased in Baltimore as of Tuesday. Company officials said Wednesday that they had decided to focus investments in other cities. Union representatives say the company closed to retaliate against tour guides who were trying to organize. Phil Ornot, a United Steelworkers organizer, said he filed charges Wednesday with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging that the company intimidated, coerced and threatened staff.

Brenda J. Clayburn, a founder and later president of the City Union of Baltimore who was also a longtime city Police Department supervisor, died Sunday of undetermined causes at her Northwest Baltimore home. She was 63. "She had recently been sick, and we are waiting the results of an autopsy," said her daughter, Shirley Y. Cooper, who lives in Baltimore. "I was very saddened to learn of the passing of Brenda Clayburn. Brenda was a strong advocate for the thousands of city employees she represented, and she cared deeply for their welfare," Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said in a statement Monday.

Anne Arundel's teachers have sent their union representatives a strong message in favor of ratifying a contract that calls for a raise -- but not until early next year.By 4 p.m. yesterday, union officials had counted the ballots in a straw vote taken early last week at 96 work sites. They reported that 91 percent were in favor of the contract.John R. Kurpjuweit, president of the Teachers Association of Anne Arundel County, said the vote reflected a belief by the membership that union negotiators "got the most they could get under this contract."

Giant Food and Safeway, the Baltimore region's two largest supermarket chains, are recruiting temporary workers as contract negotiations continue with the union that represents 23,000 employees. The current agreement expires March 31. The companies said hiring additional staffing was standard during contract talks. Safeway said in a newspaper advertisement that it was seeking applications for temporary workers "due to a possible labor dispute. " "In the event of a work stoppage, we'll be able to keep our stores up and running and serve our customers," Giant spokesman Jamie Miller said Tuesday, noting that both grocers sought temporary workers during the last contract talks, in 2008.

A dozen staff members at Baltimore City Community College gathered in the rain yesterday to protest the firing of a 12-year campus veteran who had criticized the campus administration at a legislative hearing. Mardon Walker, a student adviser, was one of three BCCC staff members who spoke at a House hearing in Annapolis in February to seek more funding for the college. In their testimony, the three had urged more accountability for college leaders, who they said had spent $300,000 on outside lawyers during negotiations with the union representing campus staff, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

The Board of Education abruptly interrupted its meeting Monday nightafter School Superintendent Larry L. Lorton introduced a plan for furlough days over the holidays-- a plan that contradicted an agreementthe board had reached with employee unions.Lorton later amended his remarks, placing the furlough days in April and June -- but not before being lambasted by union representatives from teacher, principal, secretary and custodial groups.During a Dec. 2 meeting between board members and the County Council, the two sides agreed to schedule the furlough days late in the school year, in the hope enough money would become available to make the unpaid holidays unnecessary.

The superintendent of Anne Arundel County schools has recommended extending a contract with one of its health care plans to allow time to resolve a grievance filed last month by the teachers union over a proposal to change the company administering the plan. "We just need more time to get the various issues resolved on this," said Superintendent Eric J. Smith. At their meeting tomorrow, school board members will consider whether to negotiate a one-year contract with CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, the administrator of its "preferred provider" plan, which nearly half of the school system's more than 10,000 employees use. System officials did not know how much such an extension would cost.

After an unprecedented 3 1/2 -hour meeting, union representatives from all of Carroll County's public schools decided last night to delay voting on whether to join five of the schools where teachers - in a work-to-rule action - are boycotting after-school activities for which they are not paid. Representatives from the Carroll County Education Association asked their Crisis Committee - formed several months ago after contract talks with the school board broke down - to define what "working to rule" would mean, union leaders said last night.

Anne Arundel's teachers union has reached a tentative agreement with the county school board on a contract offering its members a complicated 2.5 percent "midyear raise."The figures in the one-year contract's raises were based on a new 90-step scale proposed by the school board, and their delayed implementation would result in salary increases of more than 2.5 percent, union President John R. Kurpjuweit said.Even so, he said, pay will not catch up with the increases in the cost of living since the county's approximately 4,000 teachers last received a contract with a 4 percent boost at the start of the 1994-1995 school year.

Frustrated that contract negotiations between Annapolis firefighters and the city have broken off, representatives from the firefighters union have begun courting city council members. Some council members attended a briefing last night by the union, which is seeking a shorter workweek that city officials have said they cannot afford. Mayor Ellen O. Moyer objected to the union's overtures with council members, saying the firefighters' representatives were engaging in "bad faith" negotiations by attempting to go around the city's designated negotiators.

"Ride The Ducks" sightseeing rides - recognized by their distinctive amphibious vehicles and passengers blowing duck calls - ceased in Baltimore as of Tuesday. Company officials said Wednesday that they had decided to focus investments in other cities. Union representatives say the company closed to retaliate against tour guides who were trying to organize. Phil Ornot, a United Steelworkers organizer, said he filed charges Wednesday with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging that the company intimidated, coerced and threatened staff.

William Arnold Lankford, a retired airline pilot and union representative, died of heart failure Dec. 28 at Regional Memorial Hospital near Miami. He was 77. Born and raised in Salisbury, he was a 1950 Wicomico Senior High School graduate. He joined the Air Force and completed two years of flight school. Trained as a tactical fighter pilot, Mr. Lankford served in Europe during the Cold War. After retiring from military service, Mr. Lankford was a partner in a development and contracting business in the Washington area.

The stabbing of two correctional officers Wednesday night has prompted union officials to call on Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. to hold a "prison safety summit" on the rise in violence in Maryland's prisons. The stabbings at the Maryland House of Correction in Jessup were the third serious attack on correctional officers this year. A prison guard in Hagerstown was killed in January about two weeks after an uprising by 19 inmates at a Cumberland prison left three officers injured. The officers who were stabbed at the Jessup prison Wednesday were flown to Maryland Shock Trauma Center.

All of the unions representing Anne Arundel County's school employees could have multiyear agreements with the district in the future. The Teachers Association of Anne Arundel County and school system negotiators promised to pursue a long-range plan to make salaries competitive with those of neighboring school systems. The unions representing secretaries and teachers' assistants want a multiyear contract, and food service, maintenance and transportation workers have a tentative three-year deal that would become effective over the summer, officials for those groups said.

The superintendent of Anne Arundel County schools has recommended extending a contract with one of its health care plans to allow time to resolve a grievance filed last month by the teachers union over a proposal to change the company administering the plan. "We just need more time to get the various issues resolved on this," said Superintendent Eric J. Smith. At their meeting tomorrow, school board members will consider whether to negotiate a one-year contract with CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, the administrator of its "preferred provider" plan, which nearly half of the school system's more than 10,000 employees use. System officials did not know how much such an extension would cost.

The superintendent of Anne Arundel County schools has recommended extending a contract with one of its health care plans to allow time to resolve a grievance filed last month by the teachers union over a proposal to change the company administering the plan. "We just need more time to get the various issues resolved on this," said Superintendent Eric J. Smith. At their meeting tomorrow, school board members will consider whether to negotiate a one-year contract with CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, the administrator of its "preferred provider" plan, which nearly half of the school system's more than 10,000 employees use. System officials did not know how much such an extension would cost.

Shocking teachers union representatives, the Baltimore County school board reduced the rights of teachers yesterday as it imposed a "master program" to replace the contract that expired June 30.Under the program, teachers will receive a 4 percent raise, their first in three years, but will lose their right to grieve work rules through an independent arbitrator. Also eliminated is a provision that Superintendent Stuart Berger introduced last year allowing transferred teachers a position at one of 10 schools of their preference.

A dozen staff members at Baltimore City Community College gathered in the rain yesterday to protest the firing of a 12-year campus veteran who had criticized the campus administration at a legislative hearing. Mardon Walker, a student adviser, was one of three BCCC staff members who spoke at a House hearing in Annapolis in February to seek more funding for the college. In their testimony, the three had urged more accountability for college leaders, who they said had spent $300,000 on outside lawyers during negotiations with the union representing campus staff, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

Jann Lee Buttiglieri, a labor union official and former telephone company employee, died of cancer Tuesday at Johns Hopkins Hospital. The Sparks resident was 51. She was an international representative, officer and health care benefits coordinator for the Communication Workers of America during the past 30 years. Born in Huntington, W.Va., Jann Lee Hoskins graduated from Charleston Catholic High School in 1969 and attended Marshall University in Huntington. She moved to Baltimore in 1986 as an employee of Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Co., where she was a service representative at its Inner Harbor office.