Collective bargaining expanded in Maryland

Members of the FPE/AFT-affiliated Maryland Professional Employees Council were on hand May 15 when Gov. Parris Glendening signed a controversial collective bargaining bill into law allowing some 15,000 non-teaching employees at the University System of Maryland to unionize. MPEC, coordinating with the state federation--AFT Maryland--lobbied hard for passage of the bill, which covers 13 campuses of the state's university system, as well as Baltimore Community College, Morgan State University and St. Mary's College. Despite union preference that one systemwide bargaining unit represent all eligible employees, the Legislature established separate bargaining units at each campus.

Meanwhile, the campaign to organize about 5,000 of the university system's white-collar professionals is under way. The issues for this group of employees are workload, dignity and respect, says AFT national representative Gary Pagels, who is leading the organizing drive.

Retirement planning eased by pension reform

After five years of FPE/AFT lobbying the U.S. Congress for public pension reform, legislation doing just that is the closest it has ever been to passage. In early May, the House overwhelmingly passed H.R. 10, the Comprehensive Retirement Security and Pension Act. Under that bill, public pensioners enrolled in Section 457 plans (deferred-compensation plans) can move their retirement into individual retirement accounts when they leave or retire from public service. Such rollovers would enable public pensioners to withdraw money as needs demand--a sharp contrast from current IRS rules for Section 457 plans that require employees to make an irrevocable pay-out election when they leave or retire from public service. Additionally, the legislation increases the maximums on employee pension contributions.

Its Senate counterpart legislation was rolled into the $1.35 trillion tax-cut measure, which cleared the Senate floor in late May.

Bill Cunningham, an AFT lobbyist, says the worker-friendly provisions of the pension reform legislation are important, particularly because men and women are living longer and need added flexibility and portability to meet their financial needs in retirement. Cunningham cautions, however, that the Senate's $1.35 trillion tax-cut measure, which includes the pension reform language, jeopardizes federal spending programs used by state and local governments.

The tax cut, he says, also threatens the financial stability of Social Security and Medicare.