Staff, community members and union leaders occupied the front steps of the University of Maryland administration building in College Park Wednesday to rally for higher pay and better working conditions.
Over 100 attendees bore signs reading “One job should be enough” and “Invest in workers” as university staff shared stories of discrimination and disrespect in an environment of high workloads and poor health and safety regulations.
“Workers united will never be defeated,” the crowd chanted.
Wednesday’s rally is the latest effort to push the University System of Maryland to create one system-wide contract that represents employees at all 12 institutions, as per legislation that passed in June 2021. Before then, each union chapter had to negotiate with its university directly, leading to disparities in conditions and wages within the state system.
In September 2022, the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees (AFSCME) union and its members rallied at a Board of Regents meeting for similar causes. But some say not much has changed since then.
Rosana Cruz, who has worked in housekeeping at the University of Maryland-College Park for five years, described a “workplace culture of intimidation, disrespect and bullying.”
Cruz said she and her coworkers are told to not speak Spanish on the job, and are reprimanded for taking sick days.
“Management is constantly bullying us, telling us ‘You will lose your job if you keep calling sick,’” she said.
Housekeeping schedules also change last-minute, making it difficult for workers to hold second jobs, Cruz said.
“But [the university] doesn't even pay us the living wage that allows us to support ourselves and our loved ones,” she said.
Representatives for the University of Maryland (UMD) did not respond to requests for comment in time for publication.
UMD staff can earn as little as $15.42 an hour, according to the university’s website. In August 2021, union members and leaders fought for wages to hit that minimum. But it’s still not enough.
Saul Walker works in maintenance at UMD College Park and serves as the chief shop steward for the local AFSCME chapter 1072. He said the University System of Maryland - which oversees 12 state universities - needs to chip in to raise wages.
“They’re making billions of dollars off of us,” Walker said. “And they’re not giving up no kind of money to us.”
The state university system has a budget for this upcoming school year of just under $7 billion. Walker said some portion of those funds could easily be allocated to pay university staff a livable wage - especially because staff are “the foundation” of universities.
“And everybody knows that if the foundation falls, if the foundation goes, that’s the whole thing,” Walker said. “Ain’t nothing left.”
USM Media Relations and Web Manager Mike Laurie said in an emailed statement that the state system is “currently engaged in ongoing consolidated collective bargaining negotiations” with the union.
“The system remains committed to that process,” the statement said.
In the latest budget overview, the state system also said that individual universities are responsible for salary increases for “non-State-support positions” like dining services, housing and athletics workers.
But leaving the work to individual universities and departments causes problems in wages and working conditions, the protestors said. The telework policies at UMD College Park is one example.
Krista Bulley, who serves as the vice president of chapter 1072, said supervisors have the final authority on whether employees can work from home.
“So you can have one worker in one department who teleworks exactly how they think they should,” Bulley said. “And then you can have another person who does the same job at a different university who cannot telework simply because their supervisor won’t let them.”
Bulley and other union members are calling for a system-wide telework policy.
“During the [COVID-19] pandemic, we showed the universities and the USM that we could function while teleworking, sometimes more efficiently than when we were in the office,” Bulley said.
“You want to do good by your workers? There’s no reason why you can’t have a telework policy. We’ve shown that we can do it before.”
