Three members of AFSCME Local 1072 — Board Member Krista Bulley, a program administrative specialist at University of Maryland Global Campus, Vice President Jen Patterson, an instructional technology specialist at University of Maryland College Park, and Executive Board Member Patrick Trujillo, an academic advisor at UMD's School of Public Policy, joined the America's Work Force Union Podcast to discuss two overlapping fights with the University System of Maryland (USM).
The first issue involved a successful campaign to force the USM to honor legally binding negotiated raises — a 2.5 percent merit increase effective July 1 and a $500 base pay increase effective on Jan. 1 — after the system withheld them despite having received the funds specifically for that purpose. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore ultimately directed the USM to honor the contract. The second fight is ongoing. On June 3, the University of Maryland, College Park, laid off 73 bargaining-unit members in the institution's first-ever mass layoff. More than 80 percent of those laid off were union-represented workers.
Grievances were filed by more than half of the affected employees and were dismissed at Steps 1 and 2. They have now been filed with the Office of Administrative Hearings at Step 3. The union is asking for all 73 workers to be reinstated.
AFSCME Local 1072 represents approximately 4,300 employees across two University System of Maryland institutions: University of Maryland Global Campus and University of Maryland College Park. The Local came to the podcast to discuss two stories — one a recent win and one still underway.
Krista Bulley has been at UMGC for 11 years and serves as a program administrative specialist, shop steward and board member. Jen Patterson has been at UMD College Park for 28 years and serves as the Local's vice president. Patrick Trujillo has been at UMD College Park for nearly seven years and serves as an at-large executive board member and shop steward, and works as an academic advisor in the School of Public Policy.
The University System of Maryland negotiated a memorandum of understanding with AFSCME Local 1072 that took more than two years to complete. The contract included two specific wage provisions: a 2.5 percent merit increase effective July 1, and a $500 base pay increase effective Jan. 1, 2027. The state of Maryland specifically allocated funds to cover both raises.
When the time came to implement the raises, the USM decided not to honor them. A 2.5 represents real money for grocery bills, childcare and utility payments, Bulley said. Having that commitment reversed after the fact was, as she described it, disheartening and a profound breach of trust.
The union responded quickly. Members made their case to the governor's office, asking that the legally binding contract be honored. Gov. Moore directed the USM to comply, and the raises were implemented. The outcome demonstrated the power of collective action, Bulley said, adding that she hopes the USM carries that lesson into every subsequent interaction with the union.
While the fight for the first pay raise was being resolved, a separate and more severe action was underway at UMD College Park. On June 3, the university laid off 73 bargaining-unit members — the first time in the institution's history that a large number of state-funded positions were eliminated at once. More than 80 percent of those laid off were union-represented workers.
Patterson said those who lost jobs included IT service professionals, mental health counselors who provide services to students, animal care workers supporting campus research, event planning staff responsible for commencement and graduation ceremonies and departmental administrative workers who keep academic units functioning. These were career public servants who served students, faculty and staff, she said.
The university cited a budget crisis as the reason for needing to lay off staff. The union countered that no such crisis exists. UMD has an excessively large endowment, a state fund balance and an active Fearlessly Forward fundraising campaign channeling money into new research initiatives. The state of Maryland, Patterson said, had specifically allocated funds to cover the USM's costs for the year, including the raises that were being withheld at the same time. And UMD continued to post open positions for new hires while claiming it could not afford to keep the people it already had.
Patterson provided additional information about the employees who were let go. A disproportionate number of those laid off were people of color, and many were close to retirement. A significant subset had recently filed or won discrimination grievances through the union. Individual departments were allowed to select which employees to lay off without centralized oversight, which Patterson said is exactly what happens when decisions are left to individuals rather than governed by negotiated rules. Poor decisions get made, and the institution has to live with them, she said.
The work the 73 laid-off workers did not disappear. It was distributed to whoever remained. Patterson said workers are now being asked to absorb the full workload of their former colleagues in addition to their own responsibilities. The expectation is unrealistic, she said. People can only work so many hours in a day.
The union filed grievances on behalf of more than half of the laid-off workers. The contract requires UMD to hold a Step 1 meeting between the union and the affected department to discuss each layoff. UMD held the meetings, but at Step 2 — the university-level review — moved to consolidate all the grievances and dismiss them as a group. The union has now filed to Step 3 at the Office of Administrative Hearings, where a state-level administrative judge will hear each case and make a determination. The union's position is that each of the 73 people deserves their own day in court, and is pursuing that outcome as aggressively as the process allows.
The union is also at the bargaining table. The initial consolidated contract — the result of a legislative change the union fought for that allows AFSCME to negotiate with the entire USM system rather than institution by institution — has reached its end. A new contract is now being negotiated. Trujillo said the Local is approaching bargaining in good faith and hopes not to repeat the 18-plus months it took to negotiate the first one. At the same time, the union continues to offer the USM partnership on budget challenges, asking to be brought in as a problem-solving ally rather than treated as an adversary. Those overtures, Trujillo said, continue to go unanswered.
Patterson linked USM's behavior to the broader federal climate, noting that higher education administrators are reacting with alarm to federal funding cuts and reductions in research funding. Maryland's state government had budgeted to cover those cuts for the current year, including funding for the raises the USM withheld. The panic about what the federal government might do next is real, she said, but using that anxiety as cover to eliminate union positions and break contracts is something different.
More information on AFSCME Maryland is available at afscmemd.org.
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