If you are not currently an AFSCME member, you can become one here. As an AFSCME member, you get to help us decide future bargaining priorities and vote on future agreements.
On Wednesday, March 1, we had another full bargaining session with the University System of Maryland (USM) at Bowie State University.
Our AFSCME higher education bargaining team is made up of union members from nearly every campus in the system.
Regarding pay and wages, we are currently composing a wage proposal that aims to fairly compensate all employees, is fairer and less subjective than the current system, and reflects the rising costs of living.
The AFSCME team also provided 7 different articles spanning nearly 15 pages that include provisions such as:
- Overhauling the disciplinary and grievance procedures
- Improving health and safety for staff, including providing safety equipment, adequate notification of health hazards, and use of and access to various facilities such as the health center and athletic facilities free of charge
- Enacting labor peace so that we can continue organizing other workers on campus without threats or retaliation and eliminate anti-union activity from management
- Cleaning up certain language regarding leave, including leave for the National Guard, military leave, leave for disasters, and accident leave
- Establishing better policies regarding professional development, job vacancies, and layoff procedures
We did reach a tentative agreement on a few items including language enshrining respect to AFSCME members, authorizing dues deductions for union membership, and enabling release time for job interviews throughout the System.
Next steps include counter proposals from both sides.
The AFSCME higher education bargaining team is still writing proposals and our proposed contract is already more than double the length of the USM’s proposed agreement, which is only 32 pages long and leaves a dangerous amount of room for the USM to continue to govern via individual campus presidents and leaders.
Overall though, the tone of the negotiations has been positive, with USM management starting to engage and ask questions. We are still awaiting more substantial responses on the bigger topics and expecting negotiations to pick up in the next session.
For our upcoming bargaining sessions, our AFSCME team is actively working on proposals regarding the following that we have heard from our fellow AFSCME members:
- Expanding telework policies — AFSCME is also supporting HB528/SB421, a bill that would require at least a hybrid telework option be offered for work that can be performed remotely and explicitly prohibits employers from entering employees’ homes to check up on them.
- Addressing unsustainable workloads, especially as a result of short staffing and high turnover
- Establishing better career paths
- Addressing parking fee increases
- Expanding leave policies, including sick leave, leave carry-over, and parental leave
- Converting contractual employees to bargaining unit positions with job security and benefits
- Addressing other issues regarding work schedules, seniority, tuition remission, performance reviews, favoritism, and more
Our next bargaining session will be in Baltimore on Wednesday, March 15.
If you have any questions or concerns or you’re looking to join and get more involved with AFSCME, please email highered@afscmemd.org.