University housekeeping employees and officials have yet to reach an agreement on a new work contract over two months after the previous contract expired. Negotiations have stalled due to disagreements over conditions like whether additional employee representatives could attend negotiations without using vacation time. While officials claim employees were always allowed to attend without penalty, union representatives say at least one supervisor told employees they would need to use vacation time. The contract negotiations are expected to continue as the two sides disagree on key issues.

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Univ. workers rights contract stalls
By José Umana/For The Diamondback
Despite weeks of protests and negotiations,
university officials and housekeeping
employees have yet to reach an agreement
on a workers’ rights contract, and those
involved said negotiations could take
months.
A contract protecting housekeeping
employees expired June 30, but
representatives from the American
Federation of State, County and Municipal
Employees workers union said negotiations
for a new contract have hit several
stumbling blocks. The 23 union
representatives, negotiating on behalf of
the university’s 3,000 maintenance and
housekeeping employees, had hoped to ask
for additional workplace protections,
including designated lunch and break
areas, but discussions have stalled amid
disagreements about the negotiating
conditions.
The housekeepers were originally
permitted to send two representatives,
who would not be penalized for missing
work to negotiate, said AFSCME
spokesman Jeff Pittman. Twenty-one
additional housekeepers had hoped to
attend the negotiations but said they did
not receive a timely response from the
university as to whether they would be
paid their regular wage while away from
work. Some university supervisors told
employees they could attend the
negotiations without penalty, while others
made no such promise and told
housekeepers they would need to use their
vacation time, which workers’ advocates
said is especially valuable as workers have
Posted: Thursday, July 18, 2013 12:27 am
Sung-Min Kim/For The Diamondback
Housekeeper protest
University housekeepers protested in late
June for higher wages and better work
conditions.

2. Maryland Athletics
Posted: Tuesday, January 28, 2014 6:46 pm
to earn it through tenure.
“Not one other public university had ever
had the gall to tell workers at a university
they had to use their own vacation time to
negotiate,” Pittman said. “Housekeepers,
like all other UMD employees, want to be
respected by UMD management for the job
they do to make higher education
happen.”
However, university officials contend
there was a miscommunication, and they
never intended to force the additional
workers to use their vacation time to attend the negotiations. Permission to include
the additional workers in the negotiations was granted on July 8, a day before the
negotiations were originally scheduled to begin.
“When there was no immediate reaction to [the request], that’s what then prompted
the assertion that the university was trying to use their vacation time to bargain,” said
university Administration and Finance Vice President Carlo Colella, who is involved
with the negotiations. “That is not a fair representation of the facts.”
Colella also said worker claims that they were forced to eat their lunches in cleaning
supply closets were overstated as well. No worker was explicitly forced to eat in closets,
and a memo was sent to university employees in June highlighting specific lounges and
rooms where workers could eat on their lunch breaks, though workers still say a lack of
respect remains.
Workers protested what they called a lack of respect at a June 27 rally, but some
workers were allegedly too afraid to attend the rally or speak out in favor of the
negotiations.
“Tenure means everything here, from better wages and benefits,” said Edward
Marquez, a warehouse employee.
According to a June 27 letter delivered to university President Wallace Loh, the workers
are asking for wages without parking costs deducted and better working conditions,
including lunch areas, air-conditioned and well-lit work spaces and adequate uniforms
and training. However, Colella declined to discuss which benefits are now on the table
for discussion.
“I don’t think it is appropriate to talk about the items that are on the negotiations, but
I can tell you that we are at the outset of the negotiation process,” Colella said. “I can
assure you that the university’s representatives are very interested in getting an
acceptable agreement and will continue working in good faith to do so.”
William Pugh, assistant director for staff relations programs, also declined to comment
on the negotiations.
Colella said there is no set timetable for the negotiations and they will go on as long as
the two groups continue to disagree.
“Parties could become reasonable and make modest changes, making agreements
wrap up rather quickly,” he said. “Sometimes, one or both parties have more
challenging demands and working to make an agreement takes some time based on
what the demands are.”
The university has hired Jay Krupin, an attorney with Washington-based firm
BakerHostetler, to negotiate on its behalf.
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3. The AFSCME representatives said they hope to move forward in discussion with the
university soon, Pittman said.
“AFSCME members want to get on with negotiating substantive issues and stop the
silly bickering,” Pittman wrote in an email. “We feel that we have aggressively
attempted to move negotiations forward.”
Ana Lovo, a sophomore secondary education and Spanish major, said she hopes the
negotiations end up benefiting the housekeeping staff better than they have in the
past.
“I know the shifts they work, and I know they get tired,” Lovo said. “They definitely
need to have better working conditions. If I were the university, I would make the
[housekeepers’] job a little easier and pay them a little more because of their hard
work.”
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