Hi everyone!
Your union president Karin Rosemblatt appeared on the podcast I Hate the News talking about our fight for collective bargaining. Listen here.
Legislative Update
Your phone calls, emails (over 2,000!) and testimony (over 75 from UMD alone) made a difference. This year, the Maryland Senate passed an amended version of the collective bargaining bill. The passage of this bill is a major step forward. It shows that the Senate leadership knows that it can no longer tenable deny you and your colleagues the fundamental right to bargain as equals with your employer.
Unfortunately, the Senate sought to appease the USM and University administrators by watering down the bill. The amended bill covers only a fraction of part-time faculty. We calculate that the amended bill would cover less than five percent of all UMD faculty. It excludes faculty who teach only one course, research faculty, and clinical faculty who are paid through grants and contracts. Faculty at the UM Global Campus are not covered. It also rolls back consolidated bargaining, a right won just a few years ago by our AFSCME staff union. (Consolidated bargaining allows certain aspects of the contract to be bargained with the USM rather than the University.)
Until the Maryland General Assembly adjourns on April 7, UAM-UMD and your colleagues across Maryland public institutions will continue to fight for a bill that covers, at a minimum, all part-time faculty. And the struggle will continue in years to come until all faculty are covered. It is crucial that all faculty—and especially part-time faculty—secure a union capable of bargaining from a position of strength. That may mean allowing the current watered-down bill to die.
UAM will come back next year from a position of greater strength. Faculty may in the end accept a step-by-step approach to unionization, but the Maryland General Assembly must understand that you will not accept a bill that thoroughly compromises the fundamental right to collective bargaining and undermines our solidarity.
You and your colleagues are building our power every day by talking to your coworkers, signing our mission statement, and joining our actions.