Karin Rosemblatt, HELU delegate and UAM-UMD (United Academics of Maryland, University of Maryland) President
In states where there are holes in public sector collective bargaining enabling legislation, the fight for the right to unionize and bargain has to take place in the legislature and on the ground.
On February 10, 93 University of Maryland-College Park colleagues submitted testimony in support of House Bill 106/Senate Bill 6, which would grant collective bargaining to non-tenure-track faculty in Maryland’s four-year public institutions of higher education. We were joined by 50 faculty colleagues and supporters from across Maryland. The testimony focused on the need for greater democracy within the university. Karin Rosemblatt testified in the House committee and Marcus Johnson in the Senate. We were joined by bill sponsors; faculty from Towson, Frostburg, University of Maryland Baltimore County, and Morgan State University; and the Baltimore Teachers’ Union, Service Workers International Union (SEIU local 500), Maryland State Education Association (MSEA), and the Maryland-DC AFL-CIO.
With theHouse and Senate committee hearings behind them, we expect these bills will be voted out of committee this year, for the first time.
After the hearings, President Rosemblatt wrote the following to members and supporters:
In the face of a fierce anti-union campaign by the University System of Maryland, we must remain vigilant. At our Senate Finance Committee and House Government, Labor, and Elections Committee hearings, the USM made efforts to mutilate our bill. Among their asks:
· Pass a significantly weakened version of the bill, along the lines of the bill that passed out of committee last year, that covers less than ten percent of all faculty
· Delay implementation until 2028, withholding the benefits of collective bargaining from our faculty for two more years
· Exclude hundreds of our faculty colleagues at University of Maryland Global Campus, the UM-Baltimore medical campus, and Morgan State
· Exclude clinical faculty, who constitute a significant portion of PTK faculty on this campus and whose contributions to our research and teaching missions are essential
USM administrators argued that collective bargaining would be expensive for the state and that having one big non-tenure-track bargaining unit would be too confusing.
In the coming week, we’ll be working to understand what specific amendments the USM intends to submit and whether legislators are open to those amendments. We are hopeful that legislators will understand the spurious and insulting nature of the USM demands. Fundamental human rights should not be bargained away because they do not, as the USM testified, fit a particular “business model.”