The Maryland Professional Employees Council (MPEC) trained another round of stewards on Thursday, October 17, 2019. The member activists serve the union on a volunteer basis and will be the point persons at their worksites for information their co-workers need to know. The day-long training took place at the Maryland Department of the Environment and featured presentations from MPEC board members and staff as well as staff from AFT-Maryland.

The new stewards represent agencies throughout the state. They learned about the contract, negotiations, safe and healthy work standards for their work

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"54599","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image media-image-right","height":"800","style":"width: 125px; height: 125px; float: right;","width":"800"}}]]Going to work should not impair our health; there is a pattern of acute health conditions linked to the time employees spend in state buildings. The state is obligated to provide safe and healthy workspaces. Resolving shameful conditions in state buildings should be a priority. The state says our working conditions are safe; however, this is not our reality. We must make our reality known

The MPEC bargaining team will begin negotiations September 25, 2019. Each year our contract priorities are determined by the results of the surveys submitted by members. This 10-question survey was emailed to all unit-g members in the MPEC database and will be posted on our website http://mpec.md.aft.org/. This survey will close Saturday, September 21, 2019.

Click here for the survey.

Members made their voices heard regarding the work environment at the Maryland Department of Health. The facility has a wide range of environmental challenges that affect members, but the most recent one to cause a stir was a bedbug outbreak. The state told the union that it has treated the facility for bedbugs, but members want a full, one-time fumigation of the building. Additionally, members are also calling for the state to pay for any costs employees incur for removing bedbugs they brought from work to their personal residences.

The meeting was wide-ranging as members expressed frustration