The state federation continues to grow with the recent addition of more classifications of state employees, education professionals at the Maryland School for the Deaf, and higher education professionals from community colleges across the state. The additional members give events such as our annual Lobby Night more people, demonstrating more power and better positioning public employees to have their voices heard. AFT Maryland took two full buses to Annapolis to meet with legislators to advocate for the state federation’s legislative priorities. More members drove themselves and met us there to display the full power of our collective unions.
Members met and discussed a range of issues with legislators. Among the topics discussed included collective bargaining for full time faculty, adjuncts, and graduate assistants at four year colleges in the USM system, along with collective bargaining for state employed supervisors; revenue generating bills such as combined reporting; the water regional task force; increase pay for K-12 teachers at state mental hospitals; four day work week for certain state employees; and a range of issues around the budget including cuts in state aid to community colleges, defunding BOOST; funding to convert contractual workers to full time state employees at the Maryland School for the Deaf; state aid to local jurisdictions; and living wage pay for education support personnel.
The diversity of legislative issues was matched only in the diversity of federation members who attended. President Kenya Campbell commented on the attendance saying, “the thing that makes me happy and excited– and I think it’s interesting also– that there is a wide variety of our members that are participating tonight. We have a good number of retirees, we have public health nurses with us, we have Baltimore Teachers Union, we have City Union of Baltimore, etc., so I think we have a really good mix that represents our entire state federation, and that’s really good.”
Legislators are now very familiar with AFT Maryland, so they too were excited about the opportunity to hear directly from public employees who work on the front lines and provide services to state and local residents. There were first time attendees, like Baltimore Teachers Union (BTU) Local 340 member Charnita White. “This has been awesome since I’ve always heard about it but never been to it. It’s been great talking to the delegates and them actually knowing about our bills, it’s awesome,” said White.
The legislative session continues until Monday April 8, 2024. Until then, AFT Maryland will continue to be in Annapolis advocating for working professionals employed by state and local governments across Maryland.
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Story and photos by AFT Maryland staff.
2024-02-15