Over 20 pro-labor legislators gathered with members of six different unions on Thursday to show support for three bills that would, if passed, extend the right to unionize and collectively bargain to Maryland workers who are currently ineligible.
“It is not picking and choosing among our brothers and sisters, it is we all move together,” Maryland State and DC AFL-CIO President Donna Edwards said at a news conference in Annapolis. “As we move forward together, so do workers that don’t have the ability to be in a union right now.”
According to Edwards, unions lower the wealth gap and increase income for women and Black and brown workers by more than 20%.
“This is about building the middle class that we built back in the ‘50s and ‘60s, and we are bound here in Maryland to go forward doing it again,” she said.
The Library Workers Empowerment Act, House Bill 609 and Senate Bill 591, would allow librarians at public libraries to unionize and participate in collective bargaining.
Currently, only librarians in Baltimore County and Prince George’s, Montgomery and Howard counties have that ability. This legislation would grant those rights to libraries in the rest of Maryland’s jurisdictions, rather than legislating their ability to unionize county-by-county.
Sen. Clarence Lam, a Democrat representing portions of Howard and Anne Arundel counties, is championing the bill in the Senate with the aim of remedying disparities across jurisdictions. Currently, librarians in one of the two counties he represents are unable to unionize.
“Being unionized doesn’t lead to a perfect workplace, but it opens the door to negotiating guarantees that significantly improve our wages, working hours and overall working conditions,” said Anita Bass, a library service assistant at the Baltimore County Public Library system.
Another act of legislation, House Bill 260 and Senate Bill 192, would give collective bargaining rights to over 4,000 supervisors employed by the state.
House Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Mark Chang, a Democrat from Anne Arundel County and the House sponsor of the bill, said that, unlike last year, the bill has no opposition.
“The opposition realized how embarrassed they should be to come into that committee and fight the bill,” said Sen. Ben Kramer, a Democrat from Montgomery County and the bill’s sponsor in the Senate.
Nicole Spencer, a field supervisor for the Maryland Department of Parole and Probation, said that the inability to negotiate with management has stopped some state workers from seeking promotions and has led some existing supervisors to resign.
“Without collective bargaining rights, we are left with no mechanisms for addressing issues, concerns or policy changes that affect us all,” said Spencer.
The third piece of legislation union leaders and legislators rallied behind Thursday, House Bill 493, would extend collective bargaining rights to graduate students, postdoctoral associates and part- and full-time faculty members at the University System of Maryland, St. Mary’s College of Maryland and Morgan State University.
Del. Linda Foley, a Democrat from Montgomery County, is ushering the bill through the House chamber. Prior to her election to the General Assembly, Foley served as the national president of the News Guild and the vice president of the Communications Workers of America union. She called the inability of professors and graduate students to unionize “a disgrace.”
“… [W]e need to make sure that they have collective bargaining not just for their own economic well-being, but particularly in 2024 when academic freedom and our whole system of government and democracy seems to be under attack,” said Foley.
Karin Rosemblatt, a history professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, agreed that the ability to negotiate work conditions in academia in this political climate is pivotal, pointing to states like Florida and Texas, which are limiting teachers’ ability to discuss civil rights and slavery in their classrooms.
“It has been educators and labor that have stood at the forefront of defending our right to speak, hasn’t it?” asked Rosemblatt.