Peppered by questions from sanitation workers, Trevor Taylor rose to his feet, casually uttered “no comment,” then settled back in his chair as angry voices rang out:

“Why can’t we get answers from him?” “There’s two sides to a story, but this man doesn’t want to talk.” “People, we gotta do a class action lawsuit!”

Without a word, Taylor soon departed.

The meeting last Friday was a showcase for the weird world of AFSCME Local 44, which represents 2,300 Baltimore city sanitation, wastewater and other blue-collar employees.

The weirdest part?

Sanitation worker Stancil McNair, the elected president who called the meeting, is barred from the union hall and says he’s been blocked from fulfilling his duties as president.

In his place, Taylor acts as the union head – even though he lost the election for president to McNair last August and lost again in a do-over election in December.

These days Taylor sits inside the union hall, while McNair assembles trash cans at DPW’s Eastbourne shop in Canton, allowed to leave only with the permission of AFSCME higher-ups.

“I can only go to the union hall for an appointment. I don’t even have an office there,” McNair told the 60 people gathered Friday in the gym at the Baltimore Collegiate School for Boys.

Of immediate concern is the potential for union layoffs, with the city proposing to cut a large number of positions at the Department of Public Works in fiscal 2027.

But the larger issue is the schism between Local 44’s rank-and-file and the person who oversees them – Patrick Moran, president of AFSCME Maryland Council 3, the state’s largest public employee union.

“We got a plantation, colonial-like environment we’re trying to change,” said Linda Batts, a McNair backer, at the meeting. She is suing the city for arbitrary dismissal as DPW’s first civil rights and equity manager.

Rank-and-file anger came into the public spotlight after two solid waste workers died on the job in 2024 and Baltimore Inspector General Mercedes Cumming published a series of critical reports about hazardous working conditions and flawed policies.

• For background see Brew Special Series: Unsafe Conditions for City Workers.

Employees lashed out not just at city government, but against allegedly indifferent leadership by Moran and Taylor, a sentiment fresh on display at the Friday meeting.

Union members voiced support for the man they elected who has been sidelined and fumed over the silence of the insider who refused to answer them.

“Honestly, the union is our biggest enemy right now,” Local 44 Executive Board Member Teresa Best said.

“Getting members discouraged”

In the wake of the workplace deaths and IG investigations, city officials responded with new safety policies and a gush of spending to fix broken toilets and battered locker rooms at sanitation yards.

But discontent resurfaced when Moran, who in 2024 had engineered Council 3’s takeover of formerly independent Local 44, called on his aide, Taylor, to run for union president.

It was supposed to be a cakewalk, but McNair – an outspoken critic of the union’s handling of pay and workplace safety – scored an upset victory. Not once but twice.

Nevertheless, he says he’s been shut out of handling grievances and other union business by Moran, who appointed Taylor to that role.

“I refused to fill out a phony application to be a labor relations specialist. So Moran gave Trevor that job and denied me my elected office,” McNair told The Brew.

“The whole purpose,” he continued, “is to try to show people that Trevor is the face of the union. It’s getting members discouraged, thinking nothing’s going to change. But I got plans – I’m fighting their dirty tricks.”

Job Cutbacks

Right now, McNair is trying to find out how the Scott administration’s preliminary 2027 budget will impact Local 44 members. Without elaboration, the budget proposes to cut 204 positions in the water, wastewater and stormwater departments.

“The utility is eliminating positions that no longer meet operational needs and creating modern, specialized roles,” a DPW spokesperson told Fox45. The agency and the mayor’s office have not responded to additional questions by The Brew.

McNair says he also has been kept in the dark about the layoffs, which he said was another illustration that “not having a unified union hurts the people we’re supposed to serve.”

Best agrees that infighting is draining the union of its clout with the city.

“Members are being told that if they work with Stancil, the union won’t represent them,” says Best. “We’re just trying to get respect and to find solutions.”

“Members are being told that if they work with Stancil, the union won’t represent them”  – Teresa Best, Local 44 board member.

Taylor did not respond to requests for comment or questions about his new position as labor relations specialist.

Moran has repeatedly refused to talk to The Brew or answer written questions. He ordered a reporter out of the union hall last fall, and an assistant banned reporters from the union parking lot on election days when the votes were counted.

While avoiding the press, Moran has been busy building up his political base reportedly in hopes of succeeding Lee Saunders as president of the International AFSCME.

Saunders is retiring this year from the country’s largest public sector union (with over 1.3 million active and retired members), and Secretary-Treasurer Elissa McBride is also stepping down. The next president will be elected at the AFSCME International Convention this August in Chicago.

Scammed out of $1 Million

During his 14 years as Maryland Council 3 president, Moran has nurtured close ties with Democratic officeholders. For the last five years, he’s had a spot on the Maryland Daily Record’s “Power 100” list of statewide political heavyweights.

While Council 3 does not give out financial information, it is required to file an LM-2 Report with the U.S. Department of Labor that gives some idea of its financial priorities.

The latest report, for fiscal 2025, shows the union spent $329,527 in political activities and lobbying and $72,329 on t-shirts and union pins. Moran himself was given $126,947 (in addition to his $147,680 annual salary) to dispense for undefined “general overhead/official business.”

Most significantly, Moran has refused to address the biggest blemish during his tenure at Council 3, the loss of $1 million of members’ money in 2022.

• AFSCME Council 3 lost $1 million of membership funds in “phishing scam,” government documents reveal (9/26/25)

• How the takeover of a Baltimore union helped AFSCME Council 3 recover from its phishing losses (10/15/25)

How the union became the victim of scam artists who, posing as a Washington attorney named “Brian Lace,” drained large sums from the union over many months remains a mystery.

An LM-2 Report revealed that payments to Lace’s law firm, allegedly headquartered at a northwest D.C. apartment building, started off at $49,680 in January 2022, then escalated to a total of $235,460 by May 2022.

Then in a series of breathtakingly large electronic transfers between June 1 and June 17, the union handed over $770,690 to the bogus law firm before it said it discovered it had been “phished.”

The union said it contacted its bank, legal counsel and law enforcement about the stolen money, but to no avail. “To date, no funds have been recovered,” the union reported.

A solid waste worker asked on Friday how an organization that had lost so much money was managing his dues.

“I want to know where our money goes. And who’s signing off on it?”

It was a question that hung uncomfortably unanswered in the Collegiate Boys gym.