Grad assistants, library workers rally in Annapolis for collective bargaining rights

University graduate assistants and public library employees on Wednesday renewed their calls for state lawmakers to allow them to unionize.

Graduate assistants at University System of Maryland institutions, Morgan State University and St. Mary’s College of Maryland have sought collective bargaining rights for several years.

Graduate students’ push in Annapolis for the right to unionize has stalled each of the last five years. The final day of the 2023 session is April 10.

The House of Delegates voted for the measure in 2019, but the bill didn’t make it to a final vote in the state Senate.

This year’s bill includes collective bargaining rights for faculty, including part-time facility, at USM institutions, Morgan State University and St. Mary’s College of Maryland.

In February, Del. Ben Barnes, D-Anne Arundel and Prince George’s, chair of the Appropriations Committee to which the bill was assigned, said the House was “standing by for the Senate” to approve the bill before acting. Barnes supported the measure in 2019.

“We spent our weekends canvassing for Senate Democrats last fall. It’s time they had our backs, too,” Daniel Smolyak, a graduate assistant at the University of Maryland, College Park, said during a press conference outside the State House on Wednesday.

“What does it mean to support equity when administrators and coaches make hundreds of thousands of dollars, while grads and adjunct faculty make poverty wages?” Smolyak said.

Smolyak and a university professor joined library employees and labor groups — including Maryland AFL-CIO, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, and the American Federation of Teachers, Maryland — at a news conference in support of collective bargaining for graduate assistants and public library workers.

Among graduate assistants’ obstacles to unionizing is opposition from USM administrators.

“My greatest concern is that collective bargaining would change the relationship from student and mentor to employee and supervisor. And that will negatively affect the educational experience,” Steve Fetter, associate provost and dean of the University of Maryland Graduate School in College Park, said to lawmakers in February.

Karen Olmstead, provost and senior vice president of academic affairs at Salisbury University, said that unionizing could cause “adversarial relationships” between faculty and administrators.

Collective bargaining, she said, could also be a distraction at a “critical time in higher education” when administrators are focused on student preparation, enrollment, student and employee well-being, and supporting the state’s community colleges.

The House has already passed a bill allowing public library employees to unionize, but the Senate hasn’t voted on the proposal.

Several library employees, including from the Harford County Public Library and the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, said they have felt unappreciated at their jobs.

“Without the opportunity to advocate for ourselves, the very essence of our jobs is misunderstood,” said Morgan Michael, a public library associate in Harford County for the last 16 years.

The Maryland Association of Counties, which advocates for the state’s 23 counties and Baltimore city, opposes a statewide collective bargaining process for public libraries, contending that county governments would bear “potentially unsustainable” costs considering the proposal doesn’t include state funding support.

“County governments and library governing boards should retain the right to make labor and budgetary decisions that best suit the unique needs and capabilities of the communities they serve,” Brianna January, associate policy director for MACo, wrote in a letter.

Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski, a Democrat and an “avid supporter of the empowerment of workers through collective bargaining,” showed support for a uniform statewide collective bargaining system.

“Collective bargaining is a vital tool for working families to get a seat at the table and advocate for stronger working conditions with one voice,” a letter from his office reads.

The state granted collected bargaining rights to employees in the Baltimore County Public Library system in 2021, according to Olezewski’s office.