Bargaining Update: March 4, 2025 Session

On Tuesday, March 4, the AFSCME Maryland bargaining team had its first bargaining session with the City of Baltimore. The bargaining team is made up of AFSCME members from Local 44 (representing frontline city workers), Local 558 (representing community health nurses), and Local 2202 (representing the city’s Human Services Workers and Energy Program Technicians). We are bargaining together to leverage our united people power against our joint employer Baltimore City.

At this session, the AFSCME team made three non-economic proposals:

• Preventing contracting out job duties done by AFSCME members
• Allowing our union to use email, fax, and phone systems to communicate union-related updates
• Improving our onboarding process and new employee orientations

In terms of health and safety, we brought up our continued concerns and are drafting proposed contract language. Additionally, we reiterated to the City that they need to provide information about contractors, city finances, and more that we are entitled to in order to bargain effectively. Lastly, we made another request around healthcare negotiations that the City has failed to bargain over in the past.