County Workers Not Kidding Around With Leggett

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)

It’s not unusual to see kids at a union demo these days, but the four-legged one gamboling at last night’s UFCW 1994 MGCEO rally drew a lot of attention. Month-old Eddie and his mother Delilah were on hand to illustrate the frustration county workers feel at being “scape-goated by County Executive Ike Leggett” said Local 1994 President Gino Renne (top, right). Under cloudy skies and with their gold union t-shirts pulled over coats and sweaters in the chilly late afternoon outside the Montgomery County Executive Office Building in Rockville, the crowd of county workers and their supporters clanged cowbells and cheered as Renne, pointing to Leggett’s office, roared “Your voices must be heard!” and brandished an oversize check for the $25 million he said the workers had already offered in savings. Charging that Leggett is “operating outside the law” in his recent decision to ignore an arbitrator’s contract ruling, Renne vowed that “we’re not going to let him get away with this without a fight!” When it was the workers' turn to tell their own stories, social worker Denise Bruskin Gambrell said that Leggett “thinks he can flagrantly ignore the law, but I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more.” A retired librarian said “My job hasn’t been filled and that’s one less storytime at the branch.” Metro Council President Jos Williams (top, left) called Montgomery County “Ground Zero” in the local battle for worker’s collective bargaining rights and Renne, thanking the county workers and all the unions that had turned out to support them, promised that “We’re in this together and in it to win it.” - report/photo (top)by Chris Garlock; photo (bottom) by Bill Burke/Page One