In 2021, after years of organizing and advocacy, we won legislation, SB746/HB894, that guarantees Maryland community college faculty and staff the right to form unions with collective bargaining rights. Starting in September 2022, community college employees can file for recognition of their union under this new legislation by showing that a majority of employees in their “bargaining unit” support forming a union.
Since 2016, the AFT has been working to address and abate the student debt crisis. We have hosted thousands of debt clinics, pressed lawmakers for changes and took this fight to the courts. We took on one of the largest loan servicers in the country, Navient, and then in July of 2019, in a groundbreaking legal action, we sued then-Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos for mismanaging the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program and leaving tens of thousands of borrowers with nowhere to turn when their relief was denied.