State employee union calls on USM Board of Regents to reinstate jobs

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The union that represents thousands of state employees confronted the University System of Maryland‘s Board of Regents Friday morning, calling on them to rescind layoffs effectuated over the past few weeks.

“Let me ask you something: Would they not fund the football coach? Would they not fund the basketball coach? If a contractor came in and had to do some plumbing work, would they not pay them?” Patrick Moran, the president of the Maryland chapter of the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, asked during a rally ahead of a Baltimore meeting of the Board of Regents. “Then why are they not funding the contract they agreed to?”

Between the University of Maryland, College Park and Bowie State University, 94 unionized employees have been laid off since late May. According to a news release from AFSCME, the positions targeted for layoffs directly served students, staff and faculty across a range of departments.

Emily Leak was one of them.

Leak was laid off from her job as an integrated care specialist at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her job was to prevent students from committing suicide. She was the only campus employee charged with that task.

“No one is proactively contacting these students now before they reach crisis point. No one is making sure that students attend the services … in the health center. No one is making sure they aren’t getting more depressed or suicidal because I sent them surveys that let me know that,” she told the board. “The work didn’t disappear when my position was eliminated. It’s been redistributed to already burdened staff who don’t know how to do what I do, and it’s creating delayed referrals, fragmented follow-up, communication breakdowns and increased risk of student death and suicide.”

Leak is one of the approximately 6,000 university employees that AFSCME represents across the state.

“We represent less than a third of the employees in the university system, and 80% of those layoffs came from our bargaining unit,” Moran said to the board of regents during the meeting. “For years, we’ve sought to work with you, to partner with you in these last two legislative sessions.”

Moran added that, when the union met with University System of Maryland Chancellor Jay A. Perman in April, they were told that layoffs “would not happen.”

“The next week, without discussion or consultation, Bowie State began laying off AFSCME members,” he said. 

Additionally, Moran said the union had scheduled a meeting with University of Maryland, College Park President Darryll J. Pines on June 9, “but before we could have that meeting, we found out without any meeting — without any discussion — that you had laid off 70 AFSCME-represented employees.”

He said he was provided with no response when asked about any plans or actions that could have been taken to prevent the layoffs.

“This is the brightest and the best in this state, and you didn’t even have an answer for that, or idea or any ounce of creativity,” said Moran. “It seems that our olive branches have been ignored, trampled on and cast aside.”

“Your silence is loud and clear: You have no intention of showing our union or our members any respect or decency,” he said.

Attending the pre-meeting rally was Senate President Bill Ferguson, D-Baltimore City, who confirmed that — in spite of having to “make hard choices” for the 2027 fiscal year — the legislature increased funding for Maryland’s university system.

“You all, our AFSCME members, were provided raises, cost-of-living increases and merit increases,” he said. “The money was there.”

Ferguson also noted that there will be a referendum on the general election ballot to allow voters to allow an outside entity to have oversight of funding when situations like this occur.

Ferguson is facing a challenger in Maryland’s primary election, which will be held June 23. Early voting began Thursday. He was endorsed by AFSCME.

Moran said ahead of the meeting that the union has asked where all of the funding from the state has gone, because “they got every single penny of their funding they needed out of the legislature this session.”

“But they would rather save money on the backs of working people, people that put in the work each and every day, instead of making the necessary cuts to the contractors and the consultants that have no allegiance and have no pride in their work,” he said.

The Board of Regents ultimately approved the fiscal year 2027 operating budget for Maryland’s university system Friday morning, including the actions that led to the layoffs.

This article was updated to add a video.