For Immediate Release
Friday, December 13, 1996
AFSCME Maryland Hits Grand Slam with Fourth Victory in One of Nation's Largest Union Elections
Today Maryland's 2,500-member Labor and Trades bargaining unit voted for AFSCME representation, the fourth in a series of union elections for Maryland state workers. Of the employees voting, AFSCME won by nearly a 3-to-1 margin over its nearest opponent. The unit includes primarily highway, building and institutional maintenance employees.
The elections, conducted by mail ballot and covering over 18,000 employees, are part of the largest organizing campaign across the country in over six years. Another 9,000 employees in the Administrative, Technical and Clerical unit are to vote early next year.
"The results are clear," said campaign director Kim Keller. "State employees voted overwhelmingly for AFSCME Maryland representation. Our experience prevailed, and we will use it to help Maryland state employees speak with one strong voice in determining their future."
AFSCME Maryland led the effort to extend collective bargaining rights to state employees, which culminated in an executive order issued on May 24 of this year. In the state employee election campaign, AFSCME highlighted its success in working with collective bargaining to improve the work life and livelihood of Maryland public employees and state employees nationwide. AFSCME already has collective bargaining agreements covering over 20,000 Maryland public employees and over 500,000 state employees in more than two dozen states. With over 1.3 million members, AFSCME is the nation's largest public employee union.
"When I worked in an Ohio state hospital we had an AFSCME contract," said Debra Gooden, a Direct Care Assistant at the Rosewood Center in Owings Mills and a member of the Health and Human Services bargaining unit. "It meant that rules were spelled out, they applied to everyone, and people were treated fairly. It put a stop to favoritism."
"Today's election means finally we have a way in what's important to us," said Dorothy Jones, a Human Services Associate 2 at the Baltimore County office of the Department of Social Services and also a member of the Health and Human Services unit. A 20-year employee, Jones noted that "We've had our pay frozen with no say, major layoffs with no say, and work policies changed with no say. Now we have a voice."
Mike Hamilton, a Heavy Equipment Mechanic at the Churchville State Highway Administration garage, noted some of the job conditions state employees have had to endure.
"Too often our physical safety is unnecessarily jeopardized from lousy equipment and understaffing," said Hamilton, a member of the Labor and trades bargaining unit. "We are forced to put up with the indignity of discrimination, cronyism, and the threat of retaliation for speaking our mind."
Nationally, the report of U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich's Task Force on Excellence in State and Local Government Through Labor-Management Cooperation notes a "Trend towards joining unions, reflecting partially a desire to better bring problems and ideas to the attention of employers." The report went on to state that in public sector collective bargaining, "when carried out using cooperative principles, (is) extremely supportive of quality improvement efforts and outcomes in public services."
AFSCME hopes to begin contract negotiations with the state early next year.
For earlier election results see:
Maryland Correctional Workers Vote Overwhelmingly for AFSCME-Teamsters Representation
