A union election will be overturned and rerun as a result of social media posts from Baltimore Inspector General Isabel Mercedes Cumming that interfered with the process, a judicial panel for the union ruled this week.

The 10-member panel, which oversees the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees on an international basis, found that Cumming’s tweets, some of which were sent just days before the Aug. 23 officer election for Local 44, constituted “an act of interference” and an endorsement, regardless of the intent behind them.

Local 44 represents many Baltimore laborers, including sanitation workers.

In one tweet, posted on the platform X, Cumming wrote: “Kudos to @BaltimoreDPW worker Stancil McNair who is running for president of the AFSCME union.”

“Dream Team,” read an attached graphic, “VOTE Stancil McNair (President).”

McNair, a city sanitation worker, won the election, besting fellow sanitation worker Trevor Taylor, the local’s vice president.

The panel found that Cumming, an appointed official who manages a staff that investigates waste, fraud and abuse within city government, is an “employer” as defined by labor law. Cumming’s office is an agency of the city, which employs AFSCME members, and she has jurisdiction to investigate activities of members, the panel noted.

“Further, an endorsement from an employer — or an official associated with the employer — carries a greater risk of undue influence given the nature of the employer-employee and union-employer relations," the panel wrote.

An employer endorsement is a violation of the union’s international constitution, the panel said, making it necessary to rerun the election.

“This is necessary to ensure AFSCME members remain confident in the fairness of their union’s democratic processes,” the panel said.

Cumming has staunchly defended her tweets, arguing that she was encouraging participation in the election and never endorsed McNair. She has also noted that the tweets were posted from her personal account, rather than an official one.

The Baltimore Banner reported that labor law experts found the tweets “inappropriate” and said they may have violated a Baltimore code that bars employers from “interfering with, restraining or coercing” union activity. City ethics officials found that the tweets did not violate city ethics law.

Reached Saturday, Cumming said the ruling, which she had not yet read, was the opinion of a union to which she does not belong. She said posting on social media about the election was her constitutional right as a private citizen.

“What matters to me is my ethics board, which includes three attorneys, found that I had no ethical violation, and that’s the rules that I follow,” she said.

The AFSCME judicial panel is composed of trade unionists, and is not a court of law.

Taylor filed a challenge following the August election, alleging non-dues-paying members were allowed to participate. He also argued that Cumming interfered with the process. The union’s internal election board initially overturned the election and called for a rerun based on improper participation.

McNair, who had by then been sworn in, challenged the decision, taking it to the international board. In September, the international panel put the election rerun on hold until it could investigate.

The judicial panel’s decision, handed down Friday, dismissed claims from Taylor that ineligible members were allowed to participate in the election, citing rules that require challenges to be made before a member’s ballot has been cast.

Taylor called the decision “great news,” but said he was turning his attention to rallying members for a pending vote on Nov. 6 to ratify a new contract.

Thiru Vignarajah, an attorney representing McNair, called the decision “disappointing” and said McNair plans to file a challenge asking for a ruling of the entire judicial panel. The most recent decision was written by one member on behalf of the panel.

“There’s no law to support the view that the inspector general in her private capacity is part of city management,” he said. “We are optimistic that the full panel will recognize that’s not a defensible position to take.”

The attorney added, “It’s never easy to convince union leadership to acknowledge that the local union made a mistake, but we are hopeful that because this mistake … is so legally clear, that they will do the right thing."