Warehouse Workers

Negotiations will resume tomorrow in an effort to end a strike by beer truck drivers and warehouse workers who walked off their jobs Sunday night at a southwest Baltimore distributor, an attorney for the company says.Norman R. Buchsbaum, a labor attorney for Bond Distributing Co. says the company and representatives of Brewery Workers Local 1010, a Teamsters affiliate, have agreed to meet at Cross Keys Inn tomorrow . Bond distributes beer to customers in Baltimore and Baltimore County.Buchsbaum says he will be meeting with the union and representatives of Bond and Winner Distributing Co., another major beer distributor in town.

It's 4:30 a.m., and the Maryland Wholesale Seafood Market in Jessup is awash in activity. A hundred miles from the Atlantic Ocean, the smell of saltwater fills the air. Mounds of fresh fish - salmon, tuna, glistening red snapper - lie on beds of ice in the chill, dimly lit warehouse. Soft-shell crabs, hauled from the Chesapeake Bay hours before, wriggle in wooden boxes lined with newspaper. Amid the din of forklifts and hand trucks, warehouse workers in orange rubber suits patrol the loading docks, handling tons of fresh catch bound for seafood markets and restaurants throughout the Mid-Atlantic.

A Baltimore County man who works at a Ferndale warehouse was rushed to the Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore on Monday morning after a three-quarter-ton cargo box slipped off a forklift and struck him on the head, county police said.Mark Steven Eltringham, 31, of the 8100 block of Dundalk Ave. was in critical but stable condition at Maryland Shock Trauma last night, a hospital spokeswoman said. Mr. Eltringham was working for Forward Air Inc. in the 800 block of Airport Park Road in Ferndale when the accident occurred about 12:20 a.m., police said.

Twenty Giant Food workers will be laid off by the end of the month after a dry-goods warehouse in Jessup that supplies Giant stores closes, union locals representing workers said Monday. Warehouse operator Jessup Logistics LLC said in April that it was shutting down the warehouse and laying off about 250 people. The subsidiary of New Hampshire-based C&S Wholesale Grocers said it would save about $13.5 million a year by shifting the distribution work to a more technologically advanced facility in York, Pa. Giant, the region's largest grocery chain, outsourced the dry-goods operation to Jessup Logistics but still owns the center and runs a fresh-foods warehouse as well as the transportation and recycling divisions.

Giant Food Inc. said it will mail a letter today to its idled warehouse workers, informing them of their right to resign from the Teamsters union and come back to work."

With no guarantee that they still have jobs, beer truck drivers for Bond Distributing Co. have voted 64-10 to ratify a new three-year contract that ends their five-week strike.The new Teamsters union contract, covering 93 drivers and warehouse workers at the Southwest Baltimore firm, goes into effect Monday. It permits the company to eliminate sales functions of drivers, using salesmen to take orders while paying drivers a partial commission.But the crucial issue was how many of the striking union members would be permanently replaced by workers hired during the strike.

A labor leader at the Port of Baltimore is calling for a special conference and mediation committee to ease the contentious relationship between the port's labor and management.Horace W. Davis, president of Local 1429 of the International Longshoremen's Association, sent a letter Saturday to leaders of state, private industry and labor associated with the port."I'm just hoping it will make a contribution to all parties," said Davis, whose union local represents shipping-container repairmen, line handlers, ship cleaners and warehouse workers, among others.

An official with the union attempting to organize warehouse workers at the Joppa headquarters of Merry-Go-Round Enterprises Inc. was not surprised by the overwhelming vote to reject the union's organizing efforts.The election was on Jan. 14, but the ballots were impounded by the National Labor Relations Board because the International Ladies Garment Workers Union complained to the NLRB that the company had created a work atmosphere that discouraged workers from endorsing the union.Thursday the NLRB denied the complaint and ratified the vote.

Hiring will begin soon for distribution centerHAGERSTOWN -- A food distribution center opening this summer near Williamsport will begin hiring in about two months, even though winter has delayed construction four to six weeks.DOT Foods Inc. of Mount Sterling, Ill., plans to employ about 70 workers, including truck drivers, warehouse workers and clerical workers, said company president Pat Tracy. Eventually, the center could employ 200 workers.DOT Foods is closing its plant in New Castle, Del., and fewer than 15 workers at the Delaware facility are relocating to Hagerstown.

Heavy Seas Loose Cannon, the flagship beer of Clipper City Brewing Co., hasn't stayed on shelves of stores across 18 states and Washington, D.C., for long. The thirst of beer drinkers for the India pale-ale-style beer showed no signs of diminishing this year as it made up nearly 50 percent of the brewery's sales, according to a company spokeswoman, Kelly Zimmerman. To meet the demand, the Halethorpe-based brewery stopped production of its imperial cream ale, called Davey Jones Lager, until next summer.