Greenbelt council advances labor code changes for city workers

The Greenbelt City Council approved the first reading of Labor Code Ordinance No. 1410 on June 22, taking the next step toward a collective-bargaining system for eligible city workers. Introduced by Councilmember Pompi, the measure would amend Chapter 13, Article VIII of the Greenbelt City Code to put into place the framework authorized by Charter Amendment Resolution 2132-2026.

The ordinance would cover certain eligible nonexempt, nonmanagerial and nonconfidential city employees, giving them a formal role in employment-related policy and a defined process for collective bargaining. It also lays out dispute-resolution procedures, a change that could move workplace disagreements over pay, scheduling and other conditions into a more structured process inside city government. Greenbelt Public Works employees pressed the city in September 2025 to amend the charter and labor code so they could bargain like police officers, and they said they were organizing with LiUNA Local 572.

The city has a police collective-bargaining agreement with Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No. 32 that runs from July 1, 2025, through June 30, 2029, and the city’s labor code says the article was originally written to promote a cooperative relationship between management and covered police employees. The current proposal would broaden that structure beyond police and make it apply to other eligible workers.

In May 2021, the Greenbelt Employee Relations Board said the city gave non-police employees organizing rights but not collective bargaining rights, and a 2022 Community Relations Advisory Board review found Greenbelt employees were not covered by collective bargaining agreements and that no comparable municipalities used CBAs for non-police staff. The next test comes July 13, when the City Council is scheduled to take the second reading and adoption vote at 7:30 p.m.