RECAP: 2025 Public Safety Summit
On April 24 - 26, 2025, nearly 100 members joined our annual Public Safety Summit, hosted in Salisbury this year! Our Public Safety Summit bring together many of our local unions that keep our communities safe. The summit is a space to navigate challenges, celebrate progress, and strengthen our sense of justice through collaboration and education. This year, we were also joined by our union siblings from AFSCME Local 3500, which represents correctional officers in Puerto Rico, to further our solidarity and learn from their experiences.
On the first day of the Public Safety Summit, we reflected on our triumphs, losses, and upcoming battles. We celebrated our legislative wins, such as protecting state employee raises and passing the Davis Martinez Public Employee Safety and Health Act, which holds public employers accountable for workers' safety for the first time in Maryland. We also discussed the effects the that the current administration's reckless cuts will have on public safety. This includes the many departments in public safety that depend on federal funding from sources like Medicaid, which provides vital medicine and medical services to incarcerated individuals, and the reality we are facing of more work with fewer staff. The conversation turned to action as we strategized on how to combat these attacks and enforce our current contracts to protect ourselves and our coworkers while on the job.
Right now, we have been getting officers hired, but cutting funding is going to make it harder on us. We are already understaffed, so we are just happy to start getting more officers through the door to help us with our workload. Cuts are going to lead to more officers being overworked, officers taking more time off, and not being able to be the good quality officers they need to be.
- Sergeant Dent-Bey from AFSCME Local 1427, Correctional Dietary Officer
On the second day of the summit, we focused on community building and developing practices that prioritize well-being and mental health. We had honest discussions on the physical and mental strain correctional staff carry throughout their workday and often beyond. Most of all, we built a deeper understanding of how each local, regardless of agency, can rely on one another and navigate shared similar experiences of workplace violence, institutional substance abuse, and understaffing. This day served as a reminder of how as a union, wemust continue to demand safer work environments and better workplace practices.
If you want a safe environment to work in, you have to be a part of it. Somebody has to speak up... you need someone on the front lines saying ‘hey, this is what we are experiencing and these are the things we need’. But you need numbers to be heard. There is power in numbers!
- Reginald Samuels from AFSCME Local 3167, Youth Transportation Officer
A special thank you and shout out to Local 3478 for hosting us this year on the Eastern Shore!