Labor unions making headway in Annapolis

Lawmakers look to pro-worker issues

‘‘We were big supporters of Governor O’Malley to get him elected,” Rod Easter, president of the AFL-CIO Baltimore Building and Construction Trade Council, said last week. ‘‘Governor Ehrlich didn’t really have an ear to organized labor. We feel like we’ve had a better time getting our issues addressed.”

The Maryland State and D.C. AFL-CIO, which endorsed O’Malley for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, held a rally in front of the State House in Annapolis on March 3 that drew hundreds of building and construction union members, and the Metropolitan Baltimore Council of AFL-CIO Unions will be back to make itself heard March 31. O’Malley and other officials stated their support for various labor issues to loud cheers from the crowd.

In his first month in office, O’Malley appointed Thomas E. Perez, a pro-union former Montgomery County councilman, to head the Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation and supported a successful living wage initiative. A living wage bill passed the General Assembly in 2004, but supporters were unable to override Ehrlich’s veto.

‘‘The biggest thing that’s noticeable for us is the change in attitude from the previous administration,” Sue Esty, assistant director of the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees Council 92, said last week. ‘‘Ehrlich was kind of like slash-and-burn with state positions.”

Also improving the state landscape for labor proponents is the presence of six freshmen delegates who were either raised in union households or worked for unions.

‘‘It feels like labor has gotten a much bigger seat at the table,” said Del. Todd L. Schuler (D-Dist. 8) of Overlea, whose father lobbies for a plumbers and steamfitters union in Baltimore County.

One labor-friendly bill now on the table would require contractors to pay employees a prevailing wage for work on all state or local public works projects costing more than $500,000. Current law applies only to projects that receive at least 50 percent of funds from the state.

Other measures focus on workers’ compensation, labor standards, medical insurance, misclassification of independent contractors, collective bargaining procedures and better on-site restroom facilities for construction workers.

One of the biggest threats to the state’s job force is a dearth of positions for skilled workers, said Sen. Norman R. Stone Jr. (D-Dist. 6) of Dundalk. O’Malley contended at last week’s rally that Maryland would pull through its recession more quickly than other states thanks in part to organized labor.

However, embracing unions is not the best way to bring in businesses, according to Robert O.C. Worcester, executive director of Maryland Business for a Responsive Government.

‘‘Unions are the ones that brought O’Malley to the dance, and business is clearly not something that he’s interested in,” he said, citing the new computer services tax as an example of an initiative that has hurt industry.

Unions have not been totally in line with the governor. Representatives from the Metropolitan Baltimore Council AFL-CIO Union testified against the Global Warming Solutions Act, a proposal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions strongly supported by O’Malley, at a hearing before the Senate Education, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee last month. The ambitious bill, which died in committee last year, would reduce 2006 levels of greenhouse gas emissions 25 percent by 2020 and 90 percent by 2050, but the AFL-CIO said it could cost the state jobs.

This report originally appeared in The Business Gazette.