What do the Starbucks in Mount Vernon, the Apple store in Towson Town Center, MOM’s Organic Market in Hampden, the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Maryland Institute College of Art have in common? Employees at each have voted to form or join a union in recent months. They’ve been part of a broader resurgence in organized labor within the United States triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, an improved public perception of unions under President Joe Biden, and a robust jobs market that has clearly put greater power in the hands of workers and less in management’s. The question many are left asking is whether this is a good thing, a bad thing or perhaps a not-yet-determined outcome.
Our assessment? It’s not only a positive development, it’s really overdue.
First, a disclosure: The Baltimore Sun has long employed unionized workers, including one current member of its editorial board. The largest of The Sun’s unions, the Washington-Baltimore News Guild, represents reporters, photographers and certain other non-management newsroom employees. And negotiations over contracts, spelling out wages, benefits and other terms of employment, have sometimes been contentious over the years. Still, on balance, it’s been a mutually beneficial arrangement that has allowed the newspaper to attract and retain top-quality journalists to the benefit of current and past ownership, employees and the community alike.
