City Hall is closer to having four unions represent employees — although two unions are now facing off in a bid to represent the city’s 475 labor and trades workers.

Both the trucker heavy Teamsters and the Laborers International Union of North American (LIUNA) have filed to represent the workers from Public Works, Public Utilities and Parks and Recreation who mow lawns, fix potholes, clean streets, maintain plumbing and electrical fixtures, operate the waterworks and sewer system and similar work.

The Teamsters filed their bid Feb. 16, while LIUNA announced Feb. 17.

The decision on which union becomes the bargaining agent will only be settled with a future election. Each union needed at least 30 percent of employees in the proposed bargaining unit to sign petitions to be represented in order to file.

City Council cleared the way for city employees to join unions in July, with police and fire authorized to have separate units and remaining City Hall employees separated to allow three different bargaining units.

As the Free Press reported in January, Maryland-based attorney Keith D. Greenberg is the professional the city has hired to manage the process. Mr. Greenberg is responsible for issuing the rules and setting elections for bargaining agents.

Meanwhile, the campaign for support among labor and trades workers has begun.

Mavis Green, a Department of Public Works employee, has been identified as the lead organizer for the proposed Teamsters Local 322.

“When we can sit down with City Council, when we can sit down with our managers, when we can sit down as a group of workers...and we can voice our opinion, and people respect our viewpoints...then, we are ‘one city, our city,’” Ms. Green stated Feb. 16.

Andre Rodriguez, a Department of Public Utilities utilities plant specialist, has been identified as LIUNA’s lead advocate and organizer.

“It is time to take advantage of the opportunity that we have and get union representation now,” Mr. Rodriguez stated. “Forming a union is our only way of having a voice on the job and getting paid fairly for the hard work that we put in every day.”

Separately, three other labor organizations have gained the employee support they need and are not facing any challenge.

Those include the Richmond Coalition of Police, which filed last year to repre- sent police officers, and Local 994 of the International Association of Fire Fighters, which is seeking to represent rank-and-file fire personnel. More than 300 members of the Fire Department and more than 550 members of the Police Department might be eligible to be represented.

Meanwhile, the Service Employees International Union has filed to put Local 512 in place to represent two worker groups, administrative employees and professional employees, which together have about 1,600 employees.

SEIU and the Teamsters initially were prepared to complete, then apparently cut a deal that allowed the Teamsters to focus on the labor and trades workers. The two unions stood together Feb. 16 in announcing whom they proposed to represent.

Collective bargaining is not expected to impact the proposed 2023-24 budget that Mayor Levar M. Stoney will present in March.

Instead, given the requirements for elections to allow each of the five employee groups to approve a union bargaining agent, the union negotiations with the Stoney administration might not occur until mid to late summer.

Any agreements would still need approval from City Council before contract terms could be included in the following 2024-25 budget when the campaign for the next mayor will be underway.