Tensions over Sphere National Harbor escalate as council members press for labor agreement

Prince George’s County Council members ramped up their calls on Monday for the company building Sphere at National Harbor to require union labor.

During a tense hearing with company representatives, Council Chair Krystal Oriadha accused a Sphere executive of offending county residents with his tone.

The council is considering whether to allow Prince George’s County to issue up to $215 million in bonds, $130 million of which will support construction of the Sphere through tax-increment financing — a process in which the county will take out bonds and repay them with future tax revenue.

Sphere has estimated the project will cost $1.4 billion in total. The state and Peterson Companies, the developer behind National Harbor, have also offered incentives.

The council’s committee on planning, housing and economic development hosted Sphere representatives and members of County Executive Aisha Braveboy’s administration for Monday’s hearing.

The council will hold a listening session Tuesday evening to hear from residents ahead of its final vote, which is scheduled for Sept. 29.

Sphere executive Richard Constable said the Madison Square Garden Family of Companies, which includes Sphere Entertainment Co., “are extremely union-friendly” and have strong union relationships in Las Vegas — home to the original Sphere — and New York, home to Madison Square Garden.

“And that will definitely be the case here in Prince George’s County,” Constable said.

Some County Council members have been unconvinced.

Oriadha and others on the council have sought to pressure Sphere to adopt a project labor agreement, which generally establishes employment terms and conditions for large construction projects and may require that contractors hire through a union hall.

Sphere has estimated the project will support about 4,150 jobs during construction, including 1,750 on-site construction roles, and nearly 8,000 full- and part-time jobs after opening.

Sphere representatives and council members said Monday that they have met previously to discuss union involvement. The hearing offered a stark display of how far apart Sphere and some of the council’s most influential members remain on the issue.

“I was clear with you, and everyone else, that we’re not doing a [project labor agreement],” Constable said to Oriadha during the meeting.

“And I’m gonna be clear with you, right here,” Oriadha said in reply, “like I was clear with you then — that there will inclusion of labor. Period. Point blank and end of discussion.”

The council chair went on to say that Sphere’s approach was “so disrespectful to the residents of Prince George’s County” and that she has “never been so offended for the residents of Prince George’s County than the tone in which you took in this moment.”

The exchange came during a roughly 20-minute segment of the hearing in which council members — led by Oriadha and Wala Blegay, who chairs the committee that hosted Monday’s meeting — pressed Constable about the inclusion of union labor.

Blegay called for Sphere to meet with labor union representatives and “get an agreement in writing” before the council’s next vote.

Constable said during the meeting that Sphere’s subcontractors will determine the share of union workers on the project.

“We’re not going to mandate that our subcontractors change whatever they do in order to force them to have a unionized workforce,” he said.

Constable said throughout the hearing that Sphere is union friendly.

In his opening remarks, he said that more than 97% of the tradespeople employed during construction of Sphere Las Vegas were union workers, and 45% of its 3,000 full- and part-time employees are union members.

At Madison Square Garden, 70% of the venue’s 6,000 employees are represented by a union, he said.

During the construction of the National Harbor site, Constable said, “Sphere expects a robust contingent of unionized workers onsite,” adding that the company expects to have several unions representing its employees after the venue opens.

The Braveboy administration largely supported Sphere’s stance during the hearing.

Tracy Benjamin, the county’s deputy chief administrative officer for economic development, said a project labor agreement would limit the number of county residents who could work on the project.

Benjamin said that Sphere and its contractors “will have to get workers from outside of the county if we are going to unionize this entire project.”

She added that employers in the county’s minority business enterprise program would miss out, considering they are “by and large not unionized.”

Sphere is planning for site work to begin at National Harbor in December and for construction of the venue to begin in the second half of 2027.

Executives hope to open the venue in 2030.

Representatives from nonunion companies and organizations on Monday said they worried a project labor agreement could prevent them and other Prince George’s-based employers from being hired to work on the Sphere project.

Labor leaders, though, said such an agreement would ensure high-quality and well-paying jobs and should be a condition of the council’s approval for the $215 million in bonds.

Carolyn Lowe, who said Monday she came to speak as a south county community representative, called on council members to “work out this labor situation, please, because we need to have Sphere come here.”

“Sphere’s too important,” she said.