Patrick Moran Is AFSCME's New President. Maryland Was the Proving Ground.
labor · August 21, 2026
Patrick Moran was elected AFSCME's fifth International President on August 20, 2026. His fourteen-year Maryland record — organizing, a council merger, and a record $23 million wage-theft recovery — is the evidence behind the election.
Key takeaways
- On August 20, 2026, AFSCME delegates elected Patrick Moran the union's fifth International President, succeeding Lee Saunders to lead more than 1.4 million public service workers.
- Moran led AFSCME Maryland Council 3 from 2012, adding thousands of members and expanding collective bargaining rights to more than 15,000 additional workers.
- The 2023 merger of Council 3 and Council 67 built a statewide AFSCME structure of roughly 45,000 workers that has since grown past 55,000.
- A wage-theft case involving Maryland correctional employees produced settlements totaling about $23 million, evidence of persistence rather than a campaign talking point.
- The open question is whether the organizing model that worked in Maryland can scale across states with very different bargaining laws, politics, and workplaces.
Patrick Moran did not arrive at the top of AFSCME because someone decided it was his turn.
There is a record behind the election.
On August 20, 2026, delegates at AFSCME's 47th International Convention in Chicago elected Moran as the union's new International President. He succeeds Lee Saunders and becomes only the fifth president in AFSCME's history.
That is significant on its own.
For Maryland, it means something more.
Before AFSCME members nationally decided Patrick Moran could lead more than 1.4 million public service workers, Maryland had already spent years as his proving ground.
That record deserves a closer look.
Not because every accomplishment belongs to one person. Unions do not work that way. Members organize. Stewards represent. Staff negotiate. Workers testify. Coalitions apply pressure. Bargaining teams sit at the table.
Leadership, however, still matters.
Fourteen years is enough time to ask a simple question:
What changed while you were there?
Patrick Moran has an answer.
Understand: What Actually Happened?
Moran became president of AFSCME Maryland Council 3 in 2012 after beginning his AFSCME career as an organizer.
What followed was not simply fourteen years of maintaining an existing organization.
AFSCME Maryland says that during Moran's tenure, the union added thousands of members and collective bargaining rights expanded to more than 15,000 additional Maryland workers. Workers secured historic raises, new protections involving extreme heat and workplace violence, and a record $23 million wage-theft settlement.
There was also a major organizational change that deserves more attention.
In 2023, AFSCME Council 3 and Council 67 unified.
Before the consolidation, Council 3 represented nearly 30,000 state government and university employees. Council 67 represented nearly 15,000 workers in cities, counties and school boards. The combined organization created a statewide AFSCME structure representing nearly 45,000 workers at the time.
AFSCME says the unified council subsequently negotiated major contracts, passed legislation and organized more than 6,000 new workers in two years. Today, Council 3 reports representing more than 55,000 public service workers across state, county and local government, higher education and the private sector.
That is the part of Moran's record that interests me most.
AFSCME did not simply elect someone who knows how to run a union. It elected an organizer who has demonstrated an ability to build one.
There is a difference.
Navigate: Why Does That Record Matter?
Large organizations can become very good at maintaining themselves.
There are meetings to attend.
Budgets to manage.
Contracts to administer.
Grievances to process.
Political relationships to maintain.
Eventually, an organization can spend so much time operating that it stops building.
Moran's Maryland record suggests a different leadership model.
Organize more workers.
Expand bargaining rights.
Combine resources.
Build political leverage.
Negotiate contracts.
Turn worker complaints into institutional fights.
Produce measurable outcomes.
That last part matters.
A union can say it is fighting.
A member eventually wants to know:
What did we win?
Maryland provides several answers.
$23 Million Is Not a Talking Point
Consider the wage-theft case involving Maryland correctional employees.
Workers had been improperly compensated for time connected to their jobs. The dispute eventually resulted in settlements totaling approximately $23 million.
The number gets attention.
The process behind the number tells us more.
The initial settlement approved in 2023 covered nearly 3,900 workers and more than $13 million. Moran said the issue had been raised repeatedly before the state ultimately acknowledged the problem. AFSCME continued pursuing the matter, and the total recovery eventually reached approximately $23 million.
That tells us something about representation.
Institutions are large.
Individual employees are not.
When those two sides disagree about money, policy, working conditions or rights, the employee usually does not enter that disagreement with equal resources or leverage.
That imbalance is one of the reasons unions exist.
The $23 million matters because it is money.
The larger leadership lesson is persistence.
The union stayed with the issue long enough for a workplace complaint to become an accountability issue.
For AFSCME delegates deciding who should lead their International union, that provides something more valuable than a campaign promise.
It provides evidence.
Building One AFSCME Maryland
The 2023 unification may provide an even better window into the leadership AFSCME members just selected.
Council 3 and Council 67 were separate organizations representing different groups of public employees.
Combining them meant bringing state employees, university workers, city employees, county employees and others under a larger Maryland structure.
Moran's explanation at the time was practical. The organizations were spending similar resources trying to accomplish similar things. Consolidation offered an opportunity to operate more efficiently and build greater collective power.
That is not glamorous work.
It is organizational work.
Different groups have different histories.
Different locals have different priorities.
People worry about losing influence.
Leaders have to determine how resources are distributed and whose concerns receive attention.
The important question is what happened afterward.
AFSCME reports that thousands of additional workers were organized following unification. Contracts were negotiated. Legislation was passed. Membership continued growing.
That makes the unification relevant to Moran's new job.
AFSCME International is essentially the largest possible version of that leadership challenge.
Different states.
Different occupations.
Different bargaining laws.
Different political environments.
Different workplace problems.
One union.
Maryland gave Moran experience trying to make that equation work on a smaller scale.
Leadership Also Gets Tested by Tragedy
Moran's Maryland tenure was not defined only by economic victories.
On May 31, 2024, Maryland Parole and Probation Agent Davis Martinez was killed while performing his job.
What followed became part of AFSCME Maryland's workplace-safety agenda.
Council 3 organized workers and community allies around legislation bearing Martinez's name and pushed for stronger systems addressing violence against public employees. Moran publicly connected the issue to assaults, threats, inadequate staffing, facilities and equipment.
There is an important distinction here.
Legislation cannot reverse what happened to Davis Martinez.
Nothing can.
Leadership gets measured partly by what an organization does after something has demonstrated that the existing system is not enough.
AFSCME pushed the issue into the legislative arena.
That belongs in Moran's Maryland record too.
Construct: Can the Maryland Model Scale?
This is where congratulations eventually have to give way to the next question.
What does Patrick Moran build now?
AFSCME says it represents more than 1.4 million public service workers.
That means the scale changes dramatically.
The organizing instincts that worked in Maryland will now have to operate across jurisdictions where collective bargaining rights, politics, public-sector employment and attitudes toward unions can look completely different.
Maryland is not Mississippi.
Baltimore is not Phoenix.
A correctional officer does not face the same workplace issues as a librarian.
A university employee does not have the same concerns as a sanitation worker.
An International President has to find common purpose among all of them.
Moran's Maryland record does not guarantee he will succeed nationally.
Past performance never guarantees future leadership.
It does tell AFSCME members something important.
They did not elect an untested theory.
They elected someone who has already had to organize workers, consolidate organizations, negotiate with government, expand representation, fight over wages and respond when workplace issues became political issues.
Now the laboratory gets considerably larger.
Maryland Should Recognize the Moment
I have spent many years as an AFSCME member.
That does not mean I have agreed with every decision the union has made.
I have not.
It also does not prevent me from recognizing an accomplishment when one occurs.
Patrick Moran becoming the fifth International President in AFSCME history is an accomplishment.
It is an accomplishment for him.
It is significant for AFSCME Maryland.
It is also a reminder that leadership developed at the state and local level can eventually influence what happens nationally.
There will be time to evaluate Moran's presidency.
There should be.
Leadership deserves scrutiny.
But scrutiny and recognition are not opposites.
We can examine the record and still say congratulations.
Actually, examining the record is what makes the congratulations mean something.
Moran leaves Maryland Council 3 with a larger membership, broader bargaining reach, a unified statewide organization and documented economic and legislative victories.
AFSCME delegates looked at the leader produced by that experience and gave him a bigger assignment.
More than 1.4 million workers bigger.
So the question is no longer whether Patrick Moran can build power in Maryland.
There is evidence that he can.
The question now is whether he can take what worked here and build something larger.
Understand the record.
Navigate what made it work.
Construct what comes next.
Maryland was the proving ground.
Now Patrick Moran gets the national stage.
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