On Monday night, the Metropolitan Washington AFL-CIO announced its endorsements in County Council and state races. The local endorsements were final, whereas the state endorsements were recommendations to the Maryland State and D.C. AFL-CIO, which would make the final decision on those races. The local council's recommendations included no position/no recommendation in the District 17, 19, 24 and 39 Senate races.
Last night, the state council decided against the local council and endorsed the incumbents - Jennie Forehand, Mike Lenett, Nathaniel Exum and Nancy King - in all four districts on the grounds that they had favorable voting records and should not be ditched for challengers, even worthy ones.
Sometimes, it's nice to be an incumbent!
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
State AFL-CIO Reverses Metro Council, Endorses Four Senate Incumbents
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Metro AFL-CIO Endorsements (Updated with Full List)
Our spy network reports that the Metropolitan Washington AFL-CIO decided its County Council endorsements last night. The news has not been formally released yet, but the word is that the labor federation endorsed:
District 1: Roger Berliner
District 2: Craig Rice
District 3: None
District 4: Nancy Navarro
District 5: Valerie Ervin
At-Large: Marc Elrich, Nancy Floreen, George Leventhal, Hans Riemer
Executive: Ike Leggett
And so the streak recorded by Berliner, Elrich and Riemer remains alive.
Update: Here's the formal statement from the fed.
CANDIDATE ENDORSEMENT RECOMMENDATIONS APPROVED AT THE JULY 19, 2010 METRO COUNCIL DELEGATE MEETING
NO POSITION means the MWC AFL-CIO takes no position in a race, leaving locals free to make their own decisions about candidates
NO ENDORSEMENT means the MWC AFL-CIO opposes a candidate’s endorsement and encourages locals to refrain from making any endorsement of that candidate.
NO RECOMMENDATION means the MWC AFL-CIO has nothing to say about a given race.
ENDORSEMENT of a candidate(s) requires a 2/3 majority.
To be considered for endorsement, candidates must have returned a completed questionnaire by the publicized deadline.
The Delegates considered the recommendations of the Executive Board, discussed, amended or accepted the recommendations. These are the results:
Endorsement in Local Races - these are final endorsements
District of Columbia
DC City Council Chairman- No Position
Ward 6 Councilmember- No Position
Prince George’s County
County Council:
District 1 – Sam Epps
District 2 – Will Campos
District 3 – Eric Olsen
District 4 – Ingrid Turner
District 5 – Andrea Harrison
District 6 – Derrick Davis (ATU 689 requested to be recorded voting against)
District 7 – Karen Toles
District 8 – Obie Patterson
District 9 – Mel Franklin
County Offices:
Sheriff – No Position
Register of Wills – Cereta Lee
State’s Attorney – No Position
Montgomery County
County Executive - Ike Leggett
County Council
District 1- Roger Berliner
District 2 - Craig Rice
District 3 - No Endorsement (Phil Andrews)
District 4 - Nancy Navarro
District 5 - Valerie Ervin
At-Large
George Leventhal
Marc Elrich
Hans Riemer
Nancy Floreen
Sheriff- No Position
Maryland General Assembly Races- Please Note - These are recommendations only - the Maryland State and DC AFL-CIO makes final endorsement Tuesday July 20 at its Executive Board and State COPE meeting.
Montgomery County Legislative Districts
District 14
State Senate: Karen Montgomery
House of Delegates: Anne Kaiser, Eric Luedtke, Craig Zucker
District 15
State Senate: Robert Garagiola
House of Delegates: Kathleen Dumais, Brian Feldman, Lara Wibeto
District 16
State Senate: Brian Frosh
House of Delegates: Bill Frick, Susan Lee, No Position in the 3rd spot
District 17
State Senate: No Position
House of Delegates: Luiz Simmons, Kumar Barve, No Recommendation 3rd spot
District 18
State Senate: Rich Madaleno
House of Delegates: Ana Sol Gutierrez, Jeff Waldstreicher, No Position 3rd spot
District 19
State Senate: No Recommendation
House of Delegates: Bonnie Cullison, Jay Hutchins, Ben Kramer
District 20
State Senate: Jamie Raskin
House of Delegates: Sheila Hixson, Tom Hucker, Heather Mizeur
District 39
State Senate: No Position
House of Delegates: Charles Barkley, Kirill Reznik, Shane Robinson
Prince George’s County Legislative Districts
District 21
State Senate – Jim Rosapepe
House of Delegates- Joseline Pena Melnyk, Barbara Frush, Ben Barnes
District 22
State Senate - Paul Pinsky
House of Delegates- Justin Ross, Ann Healy, Tawana Gaines
District 23
State Senate - Doug Peters
House of Delegates- James Hubbard, Marvin Holmes, NO Position for 3rd Spot
District 24
State Senate – No Position
House of Delegates- Carolyn Howard, Michael Vaughn, Greg Hall
District 25
State Senate - Ulysses Currie
House of Delegates- Aisha Braveboy, Melony Griffith, Dereck Davis (with the proviso that MWC and MD.DC send him letters regarding his anti-CWA behavior and request a meeting)
District 26
State Senate - Anthony Muse
House of Delegates- Veronica Turner, Kris Valderrama, NO Endorsement of Jay Walker
District 27
State Senate- Defer to Md/DC AFL-CIO (Miller refused to fill out questionnaire)
House of Delegates- James Proctor, Joseph Vallario
District 47
State Senate- No Position
House of Delegates- Doyle Niemann, Jolene Ivey, No Position 3rd spot
Tri-County Legislative Districts
District 27-B –
House of Delegates- Sue Kullen
District 28 –
State Senate- Mac Middleton
House of Delegates- Peter Murphy, Gary Hodge, Jim Easter
District 29 –
State Senate- Roy Dyson
House of Delegates- John Bohanan
A recommendation from Tri-County COPE was inadvertently left off the list of candidates for consideration by the Executive Board. It was moved, seconded and adopted to endorse Cliff Savoy, member of Sheet Metal Local 100, for the Calvert County Democratic Central Committee and the Calvert County School Board.
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
AFL-CIO Suspends County Council Endorsement Process
In the clearest sign yet of labor discontent with the County Council, the Metro Washington AFL-CIO has suspended its endorsement process for council candidates because of the county budget "crisis" and its impact on affiliated unions. This sort of action by the labor federation may be unprecedented in MoCo politics.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Prince George’s Labor War, Part Two
Dissatisfied with anti-union statements made by the leaders of the Prince George’s County Democratic Central Committee (PGCDCC), the Metropolitan Washington AFL-CIO sent an ultimatum to every politician in the county: sign a pro-labor pledge or lose labor’s support in the next election. How did the politicians react?
Publicly, mostly with silence. Only five politicians actually signed the pledge: Delegates Barbara Frush, (D-21), Ben Barnes (D-21), Ann Healy (D-22), Doyle Niemann (D-47) and Veronica Turner (D-26), who is an SEIU staffer. But District 24 Delegate Joanne Benson sent this stinging letter back to the central labor council:
Delegate Benson’s letter is refreshingly honest coming from a politician! She admits that the central committee is “under the control of [the county’s State] Senators, which is very unfortunate. The delegates only seem to matter when we are asked to contribute money.” And then she says this: “At a time when we should be working together, we are embroiled in foolishness! Don’t send out another letter!... Signing letters and threatening those of us who have been your faithful voice won’t get it!... The time for kissing rings should come to a halt.”
Amen, Delegate! This dispute is tragic on multiple levels.
First, PGCDCC is nearly irrelevant. As Delegate Benson notes, it is utterly dominated by the county’s State Senators and cannot even discharge its sole responsibility – filling legislative vacancies – with any semblance of dignity. The odious statements by its leaders against a major power base of the party reveals their comical incompetence. MCDCC would never dream of such a thing. (Can you imagine MCDCC issuing statements cheering on the shower nuts?) So why are these people on the central committee? Because the State Senators need a place to deposit their faithful supporters. Such is their prerogative. Politicians have to be allowed to play with the toys in their sandbox. It is just compensation for the abuse they endure from their constituents!
This is not to say that labor’s outrage is unjustified – it is merely misdirected. And here is the second problem: labor is trying to pressure politicians who have little power to remedy the underlying causes of the dispute. (That is especially the case for any County Council Members who received the letter.) This will only cause resentment that is sure to be exploited by labor’s enemies.
The third problem is labor’s use of a written pledge to compel obedience. Politicians cannot be treated like dogs or robots – they are human beings. The best way to deal with potentially helpful politicians is to form relationships with them. Convince them that helping you also helps them. No politician ever delivers 100% of what you want. But if properly brought along, many of them (at least the Democrats) can deliver enough of the time to produce a tolerable record. The rest of them may be convinced to at least not stand in the way of good ideas. No, this is not a path to nirvana, but it is a path to realistic results.
Here is how labor can extract itself from this mess:
1. Go ahead and treat the central committee like the non-persons they are. Evict them from the Sheet Metal Workers union hall. And send a message that if any of them want to run for public office in the future, they will have to perform a lot of damage control to earn any union support. That message alone will divide the central committee and may provoke the leadership ouster that the unions seek. If not, who cares?
2. Quietly start calling the incumbent politicians and tell them the following: “The central committee is screwed up and we will no longer deal with them. But we know you don’t agree with them. We are ready to move on. Let’s work together on our common priorities.”
Then the central committee will return to the muck-splattered irrelevance from whence they came and the negative press coverage will stop. Pro-worker cooperation will resume with the willing. Perhaps a few of the wobbliest politicians will need to be reminded of labor’s sensitivities and perhaps not. But the labor war will end and the Prince George’s political community will settle down to business.
And what would that be? Moving on to the next big fight, of course. This is Prince George’s County after all!
Disclosure: My union, the Carpenters, is not a member of the central labor council.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Prince George’s Labor War, Part One
In a dispute that is ugly even by the standards of Prince George’s County, much of the local labor movement has declared war against the county’s Democratic Central Committee. The biggest casualty so far is labor’s relations with the county’s politicians.
The battle began last fall when UFCW Local 400 official Anthony Perez filed a zoning appeal to block a new commercial project in Landover containing a non-union Wegmans grocery store. Prince George’s County Democratic Central Committee (PGCDCC) Vice Chairman Arthur A. Turner Jr., assisted by committee Chairman Terry Speigner, sent out a mass email on 9/21/07 protesting the appeal. Turner wrote, “Why is Mr. Perez fighting against those who live, work, play and pray in our beloved Prince George’s County? Why is he acting to keep us in a subservient, second-class, substandard, marginal state?... I am prayerful that his intentions are noble and just and not part of some less than honorable scheme.” The labor movement was outraged at the criticism and Metropolitan Washington AFL-CIO President Joslyn Williams wrote to the central committee, “Labor unions have done more to create and expand the middle class in Prince George’s County than any other institution, not to mention our years of work to get Democrats elected to office... I am saddened and dismayed you would help spread such anti-union sentiments.”
The unions sought the ouster of both Speigner, the central committee Chairman, and Turner, the Vice-Chairman, threatening to evict the committee from its space at the union hall of Sheet Metal Workers Local 100. Ultimately, while neither Speigner nor Turner left, they did agree to add six female union members to the central committee as a compromise. But the central committee broke that deal and added six members approved by the county’s State Senators instead.
So in June, the Metropolitan Washington AFL-CIO dropped a nuclear bomb on every politician in the county: sign an all-encompassing pro-labor pledge that included opposition to the central committee’s leadership or receive no labor support in the next election. We reproduce labor’s ultimatum below:
We’ll find out how the politicians reacted in Part Two.
Friday, May 02, 2008
Maryland AFL-CIO Backs Slots
In a development that surprised no one, both the Maryland/District of Columbia AFL-CIO and the Metropolitan Baltimore AFL-CIO announced their backing of slots today.
The Sun carried this classic quote:"The main reason we're doing this is because of jobs, and that's what the hell we're supposed to do," said Ernie Grecco, president of the Metropolitan Baltimore Council AFL-CIO. He noted that racetracks such as Pimlico are "wall to wall" union facilities. "We're going to be contacting our members and asking them in November to get out there and vote for slot machines."
Jobs, jobs, jobs! Now that's a union guy talking!
The pro-slots side has been picking up momentum in the last couple months by earning support from the Maryland State Teachers Association, the Maryland Association of Counties and the Maryland Chamber of Commerce. But the AFL-CIO's endorsement does not mean that labor is monolithically pro-slots. MCEA resisted the state teachers board's pro-slots vote and one of the leaders of the anti-slots campaign is Chuck Graham, business manager of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 26.
As a fellow building trades guy, I cannot resist asking this question. If the IBEW is opposed to the casinos, do the other trades get to perform the electrical work if the casinos go up?
