Council 3 Updates

For the first time, our contract covering 20,000 state employees in Units A, B, C, D, F, and H contains language allowing us to have five Chief Stewards!

AFSCME Members Stop Legislation to Weaken Maryland’s Public Employee Workforce

Each year, there are several bills proposed that would harm Maryland’s public employees which we must work together to stop. This year several pieces of legislation were put in that would have hurt Maryland’s public workforce. By coming together at lobby nights, writing letters, and testifying against these bills AFSCME members were able to stop these legislations from passing.

This year, AFSCME Council 3 members stood together to ensure legislation important to working people would not be vetoed by Governor Hogan. AFSCME Members spoke out in the media and sent hundreds of letters urging the Governor not to veto important legislation. Despite this, the Governor vetoed the legislation, and the Maryland Legislature overturned his veto this past Saturday. Thanks to the advocacy of AFSCME Members and our allies these important pieces of legislation will now become law without further delay.

If you signed on to the largest grievance filed in state history and have left state employment- please review this important update about the payment process. As you probably heard, the state and AFSCME have settled this grievance and as a result, the state owes you a $2500 bonus for the settlement.  

2022 is a big year in Maryland and we need all the help we can to make sure our AFSCME endorsed candidates win! Now is better than ever to get a head start on talking to our AFSCME members!

Together with our brothers and sisters at AFSCME Council 67 and AFSCME Local 2250, our union has endorsed Tom Perez for Governor and Brooke Lierman to be the next Comptroller of Maryland. 

At the end of the last pay period, on February 8th, COVID-19 response pay was terminated by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM). We fought over the past two years for expanded response pay and other types of compensation for the risks frontline workers are taking during this pandemic. Despite our demands at bargaining for a clear process on response pay, DBM would not budge on anything but a pay-period by pay-period extension at their discretion.

This year, members of AFSCME Council 3 are pursuing a robust legislative agenda including strengthening and expanding collective bargaining. Check out the pieces of legislation we are following below. 

On Monday, January 31st, AFSCME Council 3’s bargaining team and a team of third-party observers completed the vote count to ratify AFSCME’s latest Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), including almost 12% in raises. Members of all six bargaining units (A, B, C, D, F and H) voted overwhelmingly to pass this agreement and secure our raises! This agreement will benefit our 20,000 plus bargaining unit members and thousands of other public employees in Maryland as well as their families.

AFSCME Council 3 recently announced we had reached a new tentative agreement with the Hogan Administration. In this agreement, our union secured almost 12% in increases for 2021-2023, you can read the breakdown on the agreement here. We urge all members to vote yes to secure these increases. All increases that will go into effect upon ratification.