New legislation will allow Maryland library workers to form unions

BALTIMORE -- Monumental legislation is now in place for library workers across Maryland.

"It gives us a voice," Harford County Library Worker Morgan Michael said.

Governor Wes Moore signed "The Library Workers Empowerment Act" into law last week.

The bill gives all library workers across the state the power to form unions and collectively bargain with their employees.

"Since library workers are not county employees, they're not state employees, it's kind of like that convoluted gray area so that's why we had to get legislation," Harford County Library Worker Megan Baker said.

A group of Harford County library workers are the brains behind the bill. They've been working with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers Union to get it passed.

"Talking to different senators, delegates, writing some letters, sending some emails, making some phone calls just trying to say, 'Please help us with this,'" Michael said.

It took three legislative sessions to get it done.

"It was quite surreal," Baker said. "I think a lot of us were in disbelief because we had this long journey to get here."

The bill is so significant because up until now only a handful of library systems have been able to successfully unionize in Maryland, including Baltimore County Library workers who made it official in 2022.

Since then, they've been helping their Harford County colleagues get this legislation passed.

"We feel like there's power and there's a power in our numbers, and it's a lot of people who feel like they're protected," Baltimore County Library Worker Anita Bass said.

Now that the governor has signed the legislation, it will go into effect on July 1.