In its meeting of November 17, Greenbelt City Council reviewed the situation relating to unionization of the Department of Public Works (DPW) employees (the remainder of the meeting will be reported in a later issue.).
During the early part of the meeting, Trent Leon-Lierman of LiUNA (Laborers’ International Union of North America) reminded council that on September 7 they received a petition signed by a majority of DPW employees requesting a city charter amendment to allow employees to unionize and engage in collective bargaining (see the September 11 issue).
Intimidation Allegations
Leon-Lierman also reported that since September 7 there have been five alleged instances of DPW managers intimidating pro-union employees. City Manager Josué Salmerón noted that he had addressed the alleged instances with managers and said his door was open to all staff to address any concerns.
In response to a question from Councilmember Danielle McKinney, Salmerón described steps underway to provide additional training to city management staff to handle conflict resolution and the legal implications of unionization. City Director of Human Resources Dawane Martinez said his department had received no complaints of such intimidation and that the council meeting was the first he had heard of them. He had also found no record of previous supervisory training provided to managers. He added that there is also a petition from some DPW employees against forming a union.
Councilmember Silke Pope wondered why the human resources director would not have heard of the complaints. Leon-Lierman stated that some workers “don’t feel comfortable with management, including HR management and that’s why they want a voice for themselves.”
Salmerón said several trainings of managers on unionization, leadership and harassment will take place in the near future. He encouraged workers to come to him directly, stating he has a “zero tolerance policy on
intimidation tactics, harassment and other things that create a toxic work environment.”
Moving Forward
Salmerón announced that the charter amendment would be ready for council to review on November 18. After review at an upcoming council worksession, a required public hearing would then occur three weeks later, and, finally, adoption or rejection of the unionization charter amendment could occur.
Councilmember Jenni Pompi noted that council could adopt the charter amendment, but then it would be up to DPW employees to establish a union, and if a union were to be established, employees who opposed a union could not be required to join it. This is true for all unions in the public sector.
In support of unionization, Councilmember Frankie Fritz stated that “collective bargaining is a human right and we should recognize it as such in our laws. … The laws we pass [should] cover all the workers in our city. When workers join unions, they are more stable, more content in their jobs and more productive.”
In summing up, Mayor Emmett Jordan suggested a scheduled worksession on the topic of employee relations with the charter amendment as part of the discussion.
Cathie Meetre assisted in the preparation of this story.
