Fighting for YOU
Local 500’s political team works to advance the interests of working families across Maryland, Virginia, and the District. It’s not just about endorsing candidates and providing support during campaigns. In legislative sessions, we’re in state capitols, moving senators and delegates to vote in favor of legislation to improve the lives of working families. We’re also working at the local level with county councils to make fair school budgets for our teachers, paraprofessionals and support staff a reality. And when need be, we head to the Hill to fight for our members and their families at the federal level.
Winning elections, pushing pro-worker legislation, and negotiating with county governments is an important way that SEIU Local 500 is making life work for working people across our region.
Ready to chip in? Local 500 members can contribute to our political efforts by clicking here.
Our Priorities
Community College Collective Bargaining Bill
Across Maryland, public sector employees bargain collectively, from county public school staff to state employees, with one glaring exception: employees of our state’s community colleges. The Maryland experience with collective bargaining has been a positive one. In good times, organized public sector employees have been able to find a way ahead working with their employer. In tough times too, employees and employers have been able to make compromises collaboratively.
Now, as Maryland’s young and working people seek a new way forward in a new, post-COVID economy, community colleges will, as always, offer cost-effective paths to new careers and opportunities. The educators and workers of our community colleges have already gone above and beyond the call of duty since the beginning of the pandemic, teaching and mentoring remotely and adapting to a new way of working.
When in-person learning resumes, the people who will be reporting to work - and risking their health - will need a voice. To protect their health and voice the concerns of their classes and students, employees need to have the right to advocate together. That’s why faculty and staff of all stripes are coming together from community colleges across Maryland to push for their equal rights to be able to bargain collectively with their employers.
Click here to download our Community College Collective Bargaining Bill Fact Sheet.
Overriding the Veto of The Blueprint for Maryland’s Future
During the 2020 legislative session, Delegates and Senators passed the much-anticipated Blueprint for Maryland’s Future. This landmark piece of legislation was the culmination of years of careful study by the Kirwan Commission, whose findings and recommendations were incorporated into the legislation to reimagine K-12 education across the state and have Maryland become a global leader in public education.
Despite the incredible need for reform in Maryland’s lowest-income ZIP codes and research showing that the economy-wide growth that the Blueprint would spur by creating a new, highly educated workforce, Governor Larry Hogan vetoed the bill. Citing the oncoming pandemic and stoking fears of a predicted recession, the Governor argued it was prudent to veto our children’s future rather than investing in their education.
This session, supporters of quality public education in the General Assembly are coming together to override the Governor’s veto. SEIU Local 500 is fully endorsing the override effort.
The Time to Care Act of 2021 (HB0375/SB0211)
Across our country and within our own state, working people have little to no safety net when a member of their family falls ill. In the most trying times, too many are faced with a heartbreaking choice between their family and their livelihoods. The Time to Care Act will create The Family and Medical Leave Insurance Program, so that no one needs to lose their income when they take time away from work to care for a member of their family. With a statewide insurance program, employees can take time for their family without losing their income and without putting a financial strain on small businesses.
Fair Funding
From education to critical infrastructure, the way we pay for our public services is broken. Everyday Marylanders who work for their money pay their taxes, while corporations and extremely wealthy individuals enjoy myriad exceptions and loopholes that keep them from paying their fair share.
Local 500 is joining with organizations from across the state to support several new pieces of legislation that will make our tax code more progressive and fair. From ending loopholes that allow multinational corporations to hide their Maryland taxable income out of state to making taxes on wealthy individuals’ passive income fairer, a suite of bills will be introduced this session. These reforms have been overdue for years. As our state looks to recover from COVID, however, they are critical.
Maryland Essential Workers Protections Act
The Maryland Essential Workers Protections Act will provide much-needed standards and procedures that aim to protect the health and safety of essential workers during pandemics. Under the act, when a State of Emergency is called, essential workers will be entitled to certain guaranteed protections, including the requirement that employers provide a safe and clean workspace, including safety protocols and PPE at no cost. The legislation would also require hazard pay for frontline workers and healthcare insurance for uninsured workers. It would further require employers to submit workplace emergency action plans as well as universal sick and bereavement leave. Workers would also be empowered to refuse dangerous work and receive cost-free tests.
To view the details of the proposed legislation, visit the Protect Maryland Workers website.
Education Budgets: Early Childhood Education, K-12, and Community Colleges
Our members selflessly serve the children and families of our local public schools, home childcare facilities, and community colleges. Never has this been truer than since the beginning of the pandemic. In this time, community college educators have upended their work lives and began entirely new online-only modules. Support staff professionals have engaged in feats of selflessness and acts of heroism, providing over 7 million meals to children in need and distributing the technology that made remote learning a possibility in the first place. Childcare providers have given it all, first shuttering their business, then providing the childcare that enabled essential workers to perform their duties. In the process, some providers and support staff contracted COVID themselves, endangering themselves and their families. Others still paid with their lives.
Many of our hardest working members have borne the weight of this pandemic and done so with the utmost degree of professionalism and without complaint. That’s why SEIU Local 500 will be advocating locally, in Annapolis, and, in partnership with SEIU International, on Capitol Hill, for increased funding for early childhood education, including full funding of the Maryland Childcare Scholarship Program, K-12, and community colleges. The next rounds of federal stimulus and the next state and local budgets must reflect the sacrifice and exemplary work of our dedicated childcare providers, support staff professionals, and educators, who have given it their all throughout this unprecedented crisis in service to our children and families.
Fighting Austerity at All Levels
As Maryland, our country, and the world work to eradicate COVID and rebuild our economies in its wake, we are already hearing the predictable cries for “austerity” from the usual suspects. Its meaning is clear: any recovery efforts must be balanced on the backs of working people so that a powerful and wealthy few can avoid joining in sacrifice and helping us all to rebuild.
Whether in Washington, Annapolis, or Rockville, Local 500 will be vehemently opposing any proposed austerity measures. Times of crisis demand investment in our essential services, education, and infrastructure, not a retreat from shared responsibility.