By Josh Davis
Baltimore Sun
SALISBURY, Md. — The Salisbury City Council is headed for a showdown over collective bargaining rights, after officials on Monday night moved closer to stripping city employees — including police and firefighters — of union negotiating power.
In a 3-2 vote, the council advanced the first reading of a charter amendment resolution that would repeal Salisbury’s collective bargaining provision in its entirety and eliminate all collective bargaining rights. A public hearing and final vote are set for May 11.
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For the second time in two weeks, Mayor Randy Taylor and the council majority supporting the measure faced a packed room of residents and union leaders urging them to back down.
“I would suggest moving this public hearing to the Civic Center,” resident Lana Foley said, referring to the cramped space in City Hall.
Taylor’s administration has argued that the city’s financial position, including costs inherited from prior administrations, makes the current collective bargaining system unsustainable.
According to a memo from City Administrator Nick Rice, “The City of Salisbury has determined that the negotiation process and collective bargaining rights have created significant financial pressures on both the current and long-term budget. Accordingly, the City has concluded that removing collective bargaining rights is necessary to better align wage growth with recurring revenues, reduce potential risks to the City’s credit rating, manage increasing legal expenditures, and improve the efficiency of government operations.”
“The situation is real. There’s no politics being played here,” Taylor said.
Brandon Records, president of Salisbury Career Firefighters Local 4246, said the proposal would amount to “literally rolling back rights of the very people who keep the city functioning.”
He called the vote “a spit in my face” and warned, “We will see you at the polls.”
Laura Toner, president of WPL United, which represents Wicomico Public Library workers, addressed the three council members who advanced the measure: Council President April Jackson, Sharon Dashiell and Melissa Holland.
“You each now hold the deciding power in this process,” Toner said. “At the last meeting, we heard a great deal about budgets, deficits, and constraints. Those are real challenges. No one is denying that local government must be fiscally responsible. But fiscal responsibility and union-busting are not the same thing.”
Christian Gobel, a legislative and political coordinator with AFSCME Maryland Council 3, said Maryland has been expanding collective bargaining rights, making Salisbury an outlier.
“Nowhere else in the state have they proposed eliminating collective bargaining to address their financial challenges,” Gobel said. “If there are concerns about financial issues with personnel costs, the answer is to negotiate in good faith at the bargaining table with the workers that you made those agreements with – it is not to throw workers’ rights aside.”
Gobel and many others who spoke Monday night said, “It’s not too late” to change course.
Two council members voted against the measure. Angela Blake declined to comment Monday, while Michele Gregory said, “I am still baffled by this approach.”
“I think it is shameful that we’re not keeping our promise to our workers,” Gregory said.
Jackson, meanwhile, blamed part of the city’s shortfall on a fire service agreement with Wicomico County that she said has stripped away city funds.
“We’re not getting the funds that we deserve … the county is cheating y’all,” she said.
Jackson closed the meeting by saying, “I have a lot to think about.”
“I am so tired of always being the bad people,” she said. “This is not what I want to do … I have a heart.”
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