The local labor union that represents employees who work for the county’s Department of Liquor Control (DLC) is planning to “pack the house” when proposals aimed at ending the county’s alcohol monopoly are discussed at a public hearing later this month.
UFCW (United Food and Commercial Workers) Local 1994 MCGEO, which represents about 8,000 county government employees, including about 350 DLC employees, sent an email to its members and supporters Monday asking them to appear at the Nov. 30 public hearing.
“We need you on November 30 to say no to privatizing DLC,” the email said. “We can’t let 350 union jobs, $35 million in annual revenue slip away… . WE MUST PACK THE HOUSE. Protect our jobs and our county.”
The hearing will provide the public with an opportunity to comment on local issue bills that Montgomery County state legislators plan to introduce in the 2016 General Assembly session, which begins in January. Among those bills will be a proposal sponsored by Delegate Bill Frick and co-sponsored by five other state representatives that would set a referendum so voters can decide if private companies should be allowed to compete with the DLC. Comptroller Peter Franchot has also proposed legislation that would eliminate the county’s alcohol monopoly, although not through a referendum.
The DLC controls the wholesale distribution of alcohol and serves as the exclusive retailer of liquor in the county.
“We have a full-time team working on coalition building that’s signing on some pretty significant community organizations that are going to push back on [these proposals],” Gino Renne, the president of Local 1994 MCGEO, said Tuesday. He said he wouldn’t name all of the organizations because the coalition is still being built.
Local 1994 members have shown up at previous meetings about the DLC and are often easy to spot in bright yellow t-shirts featuring the union’s logo. About 350 union members are currently employed at the DLC.
Renne said the state legislators supporting the proposed legislation don’t appreciate the financial impact on the county budget of eliminating the DLC. Currently the department brings in more than $30 million in annual profits, which is also used to pay off $114 million in bonds that are funding capital construction projects in the county.
“The county does not have the capacity to absorb the financial obligations and lose the revenues that are being put into play by irresponsible legislators,” Renne said. “This isn’t just about saving 350 middle-class jobs, which should be a significant issue in itself in this debate.”
He also said the union will work to make sure that supporters of the proposals aren’t re-elected. “We don’t need irresponsible legislators who are corporate Democrats,” Renne said. “We have enough of that on the national level.”
The latest efforts to protest the proposed legislation follow an October letter to Montgomery County leaders from Joslyn Williams, the president of the Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO, that urged them not to support legislation that could impact union jobs.
In the letter, Williams said a County Council resolution passed in July to allow private companies to sell certain craft beers and fine wines was a measured approach that should be supported by state legislators.
“The resolution was a fair solution that will keep 350 good, family-sustaining jobs in place, allow for growth and also allow for more flexibility in the County’s DLC ordering system,” Williams wrote.
Last week, eight of nine council members issued their own letter that reiterated their support for the resolution and questioned the state delegates’ proposed legislation. That letter said that impacting the DLC’s more than $30 million in profits generated by the department could negatively impact county priorities such as school construction or transportation projects.
