Maryland to Outlaw Worker Displacement

BALTIMORE, MARYLAND

Maryland workers may soon be able to rest more easily.

Responding to appeals from AFSCME activists, Gov. Parris Glendening (D) has declared he will issue an executive order preventing workfare participants from replacing current workers in the public and private sector.

"Displacement of workers is illegal and immoral," said Glendening. "It doesn’t do us any good to talk about declining welfare rolls, if we are forcing other people into unemployment."

Once the directive becomes law, Maryland will become the first state to require employers to create one regular job for each welfare recipient hired. It will also prohibit employers from using tax credits and other welfare reform incentives as a means to cut payroll costs.

AFSCME Local 1711 Pres. Valerie Bell explains that "our members’ jobs were hanging in the balance with the threat of workfare participants taking our jobs. But thanks to the efforts of AFSCME, the Industrial Areas Foundation and the Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development, our members can go to sleep at night and wake up knowing they have job security."

Bell hopes the executive order will have some "real teeth" in it. "The displacement language must be tough enough so that employers will abide by it and the law will be upheld, otherwise it’s not going to work."

An estimated 2 million new workers will enter the workforce in the next five years under federal welfare reform as welfare recipients are required to work in order to receive benefits. AFSCME is taking action across the country to ensure that these workers do not displace current workers, and are placed in jobs with livable wages and union protections.