Maryland was one of six states to receive an F for its public-sector labor laws in a new report from the Commonwealth Foundation, a Pennsylvania-based free-market policy group, even as state lawmakers expanded collective bargaining rights for several categories of government employees this year — including nontenure-track faculty at St. Mary’s College of Maryland.
The foundation’s fifth annual 50-State Labor Report grades states on 15 criteria covering collective bargaining, strikes, union certification, payroll deductions and right-to-work protections. Its scoring system generally rewards states with more restrictions on public-sector bargaining and union activity, and Maryland — which also received an F in the group’s 2024 report — joined California, Illinois, Oregon, Rhode Island and Washington at the bottom of this year’s rankings. Thirteen states received an A grade, seven of those an A+.
David Osborne, the foundation’s senior director of labor policy and a report co-author, has argued that public-sector unions have increasingly turned to state legislatures for expanded bargaining rights since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2018 Janus v. AFSCME decision, which barred governments from requiring nonunion public employees to pay union fees. The foundation’s recommended reforms for Maryland include paycheck protection rules, ending paid release time for union work, and a public employees’ bill of rights — positions that reflect the group’s broader push to limit union influence, a framing that public-sector unions and their allies in the legislature would dispute as a measure of good labor policy.
Maryland lawmakers approved several bargaining expansions during the 2026 session. Gov. Wes Moore signed a law allowing certain graduate assistants at the University of Maryland, College Park and UMBC to collectively bargain, effective July 1, 2028. A second law — part of a broader package of new laws that took effect July 1 — extended bargaining rights to qualifying nontenure-track faculty at University System of Maryland institutions, Morgan State University and St. Mary’s College of Maryland. A third new law granted collective bargaining rights to supervisory employees at the Baltimore County Public Library, also effective July 1.
A separate, higher-profile change awaits voters this fall. The Arbitration Reform for State Employees Act, which Moore signed in April, alters the bargaining process for certain state employees and creates a binding arbitration process for negotiation impasses — but a portion of the law requires voter approval through a constitutional referendum, which Maryland lawmakers moved this summer to ensure appears only once on the November ballot as Question 1. If approved, the measure would require the governor to include funding in the proposed state budget for wages, benefits and other terms in certain collective bargaining agreements, including terms set through arbitration.
Maryland had already overhauled parts of its public-sector labor framework before this year’s session. The 2023 Public Employee Relations Act consolidated several labor-relations functions under the state’s Public Employee Relations Board.
