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Working & the Economy

State Reaches Agreement With Largest Union on Contract That Boosts Health and Safety Protections

Patrick Moran, president of AFSCME Council 3, speaks during a union event in Annapolis. Photo by Danielle E. Gaines.

Maryland’s largest state employee union reached a contract agreement with the Hogan administration late last week that will bring a 12% wage increase, additional COVID-19 response pay and stronger health and safety measures to thousands of public-sector employees.

The new contract between the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 3 and the state includes a $1,000 bonus this year and cost of living adjustments for the next two years. It also requires state agencies to notify their employees if they were near someone who tested positive for COVID-19, according to AFSCME Council 3.

State employees who are vaccinated and boosted can take 10 days of special COVID leave, instead of using their own sick leave, through the end of this year under the new agreement, according to AFSCME Council 3.

In addition, the new contract extends COVID hazard pay for employees who are in close contact to COVID positive people, such as workers in state hospitals and prisons. The state had discontinued hazard pay at the end of 2020 and reinstated it last spring through a budget amendment, but scores of essential state workers reported that they were left out.

And the state must meet with the union on health and safety issues twice a year under the new contract, according to AFSCME Council 3.

This agreement has been a long time coming for AFSCME Council 3, which had been imploring Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr. (R) to bargain on additional health and safety measures and hazard pay for state employees, most of whom are frontline workers, since the beginning of the pandemic. The union represents about 20,000 social workers, nurses, direct care assistants, correctional officers, highway workers, juvenile service workers, and case managers, among others.

“This was a very hard fought agreement,” said Patrick Moran, president of AFSCME Council 3. “It’s a step in the right direction…and is something that is well deserved. We’re happy to see that our members are going to finally make some economic gains under the Hogan administration.”

But Moran added that he was disappointed that it had taken nearly two years to come to an agreement with the administration on COVID safety concerns for state employees.

During bargaining conversations in the fall, Hogan had rejected requests by the union to provide higher quality masks, such as KN95 or N95 masks, to all state employees and to institute a mask mandate and screening procedures in state buildings, the union said in a statement on New Year’s Eve. On Monday, Hogan announced a mask mandate in state buildings.

Moran said Hogan’s move on Monday was a good step forward but that the state should also screen anyone who enters state buildings to prevent those who have tested positive for COVID from entering.

Although this agreement overall represents good progress, AFSCME Council 3 said it was not enough and called for labor law reform in the upcoming legislative session.

Collective bargaining laws in the state “need to be updated to make it a process that will be fair for both parties at the table,” Moran said. “Right now, it is not — it is totally tilted in the state’s favor.”

In a statement, Hogan celebrated the historic agreement reached with labor unions and thanked state employees for their service.

Moran said AFSCME will aim to mail ballots to its members by the end of the week and results will be tallied later this month.

The Hogan administration reached similar terms with the Maryland Professional Employees Council Local 6197, a division of the American Federation of Teachers that represents about 5,000 state employees.

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State Reaches Agreement With Largest Union on Contract That Boosts Health and Safety Protections