MD bill aims to protect workers after Trump targeting of national labor board

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In another attempt to combat President Donald Trump‘s policies, Del. C.T. Wilson is sponsoring legislation to establish the Maryland Labor Relations Board should the national iteration become weakened or snuffed out.

“This bill is basically about accountability and protecting workers’ rights,” Wilson, D-Charles, said at the Annapolis bill hearing Thursday. 

The National Labor Relations Act went into effect in 1935, giving private-sector workers the ability to organize, unionize and participate in collective bargaining with their employers. That federal law is enforced by the National Labor Relations Board, which settles labor disputes.

Early in his second term, Trump fired a Democratic member of the five-person labor board, leaving it without a quorum. 

According to Reuters, the U.S. Senate confirmed Trump’s appointments to the NLRB in late 2025, leaving the board in a position to take on cases but also more likely to favor employers’ positions in disputes.

Wilson said he is sponsoring the bill in the instance that federal protections for private-sector workers are “weakened or withdrawn,” adding that, at the time of the legislation’s drafting, the NLRB “was defunct.”

Although he recognized the bill might not be needed, he said it’s an important policy to have enshrined, and it would only be triggered if the NLRA is repealed, if there isn’t adequate membership on the NLRB or if its members cede their jurisdiction to settle disputes.

“Basically, somebody’s got to settle these union disputes, and if they’re not active and they’re not being appointed, we as a state still need to figure out how to settle the disputes,” Wilson said.

Donna Edwards, president of the Maryland State and D.C. AFL-CIO, said that because the bill is contingent upon the actions to disrupt or destroy the NLRA and NLRB, there are no concerns regarding preemption or jurisdiction.

Under the legislation, the Maryland Labor Relations Board would have the ability to issue subpoenas, administer oaths, examine evidence and question witnesses in labor disputes. 

“I have no idea what’s going to happen in November. I have no idea if we’re going to have an NLRB, and I wanted to make sure Maryland was ahead because … I believe in fairness, and I do believe in the core values of the NLRA and giving individuals the right to join a union and making sure that our employers treat their employees fairly, but they, themselves, know what their rights are,” Wilson said. 

The bill also establishes the rights of Maryland’s private-sector employees to form and join or refuse to join unions, allows for the collection of membership dues and bars employers and employees from engaging in unfair labor practices. 

The board would be an independent unit of state government.

“By encouraging structured collective bargaining, providing dispute resolution mechanisms, this bill promotes labor peace, reduces uncertainty and strengthens our economic climate,” Wilson said. “It’s important that if these federal protections shift, that Maryland not leave its workers or its employers behind.”

Wilson’s bill must be voted out of the House Government, Labor and Elections Committee before it reaches the chamber floor. A date for that voting session has yet to be set.

This story has been updated.