MD state employee union leader elected international president

Patrick Moran, president of the Maryland chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, was elected Thursday to serve as the union’s international president.

“We will fight and build power like our future depends on it because it does. We will protect our neighbors and strengthen our communities,” Moran said in a statement Thursday. “This is our fight, and together, we’ve got the power to make change.” 

Moran has been a consistent figure in Annapolis, advocating for benefits, better pay and legislation to support the nearly 30,000 state employees represented by AFSCME. Last month, for example, the union announced that it planned to pursue a lawsuit against the University System of Maryland for allegedly not adhering to salary increases allocated in Maryland’s fiscal year 2027 budget.

“If the football coach has a contract and they’re obligated to pay them $5 million a year — or more, probably — are they going to short that contract unless there’s something absolutely egregious? No, they aren’t,” Moran said during a July news conference in Baltimore. “So why do they feel they have the right to do that to the hardworking people behind me that make sure the students have a great place to go to school every day?”

Moran, who’s held the Maryland chapter role since 2012, was elected to his new job on a ticket with Nicole Pollard, the union’s new international secretary-treasurer.

Pollard previously served as AFSCME’s international executive assistant under former President Lee Saunders and has been a member of the union for 23 years. She is the first Black woman to take on this role.

Under Moran’s tenure, the union’s Maryland chapter also successfully ushered several pieces of legislation to protect state employees to the governor’s desk, including a law named in honor of Davis Martinez, a parole and probation agent who was murdered on the job in May 2024.

The Davis Martinez Public Employee Health and Safety Act, which went into effect last October, created the Public Employees’ Safety and Health Unit in the Maryland Department of Labor to introduce standards regarding workplace violence against state employees to the Maryland Occupational Safety and Health program. Those standards are to be adopted by Oct. 1.

In 2024, Moran also helped orchestrate a $23 million settlement between the state of Maryland and thousands of current and former correctional employees improperly compensated for overtime work.

“It’s a disservice to the taxpayers, it’s a disservice to the employees that no one has been held accountable for this wage theft,” Moran said at a 2024 Board of Public Works meeting when the settlement was finalized.

In his new role, Moran will represent 1.4 million public service workers across the U.S.

U.S. Rep. Johnny Olszewski Jr. and state Senate President Bill Ferguson, both Democrats, sent messages of congratulations to him on social media Thursday, with Ferguson writing in a post on X that “Maryland should be proud to see one of our own chosen to lead AFSCME at this important moment for working people across the country.”

In a statement to The Daily Record on Thursday evening, the Maryland chapter also congratulated Moran on his election and said that under his leadership, membership grew by thousands, and collective bargaining rights were expanded to more than 15,000 workers across the state.

“Our AFSCME family in Maryland will miss his daily presence, but we are excited to see the decades of union experience and organizing spirit that President Moran will bring to our national union,” the Maryland chapter said. “We are confident that as AFSCME’s next leader, President Moran will continue to grow worker power, protect and expand public services, and improve the lives of working people everywhere.”

A source told The Daily Record on Friday that the AFSCME Maryland executive board will be naming a successor but would not say when.

This article has been updated.