Maryland board rules state violated bargaining agreement with union

The Maryland Public Employee Relations Board said the Department of Budget and Management failed to bargain in good faith with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 3 when it denied access to information about telework eligibility.

The board, in a ruling issued Wednesday afternoon, ordered the state to provide the requested information in 14-days. The decision marks another bump in what has been an uneven relationship between Democratic Gov. Wes Moore and the union that represents 50,000 workers statewide — more than half of those working in state government positions.

“The labor board affirms the union’s right for information that the employer must provide it to us for us to effectively bargain,” said Stuart Katzenberg, a spokesperson for the union. “It also affirms that they (state government) have to bargain over mandatory subjects which include wages, hours, or working conditions — which is telework — and more. The employer can’t just shut it down, whether it’s the state of Maryland or the University System of Maryland or anyone else.”

The 13-page decision found that the Department of Budget and Management failed to bargain in good faith with the union when it refused to produce records related to teleworking.

The union requested the records as part of contract negotiations as it sought to understand teleworking policies in state agencies and how they were applied to individual employees.

The state budget department denied the union’s request saying it did not maintain individual employee telework records and was not required to create new records just because the union requested the information.

But the board, in its ruling, rejected that argument saying the agency “did not carry its burden to show that the requested information did not exist, could not be obtained, or would be unduly burdensome to produce.”

A spokesperson for Moore did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The complaint was one of a trio filed by the union in December.

One complaint alleges the state violated an agreement with the union regarding pay rates for employees who work overnight. The state is required to pay any union employee an additional $1 per hour.

In another complaint, the union said the Maryland Department of Health’s use of video surveillance violates the collective bargaining agreement. The union said the agreement allows such surveillance “solely for security purposes,” and claims that the department is tracking “employees in the moment-to-moment performance of their duties.”

Decisions on those other cases are pending.

Moore has had an uneven — and at times contentious — relationship with AFSCME. The union endorsed another candidate over Moore in the 2022 primary. This year, the union opted not to endorse in the Democratic primary.

Moore and AFSCME failed to reach an agreement on a contract and the union criticized Moore publicly for salary increases that lagged behind the rate of inflation.