A union representing Baltimore laborers, including sanitation workers, will rerun an election for its officers in response to a complaint of improper election procedure.

An election committee for AFSCME Local 44, which represents blue-collar workers of the Baltimore Department of Public Works, Department of Transportation and Department of General Services, sided with candidate Trevor Taylor last week in his bid to overturn the results of an Aug. 23 election.

Taylor, who lost the race for union president to fellow DPW worker Stancil McNair, argued the union failed to confirm voters were dues-paying members when they allowed them to participate in the election.

The new election is slated for Oct. 4, union members were told last week.

Asked to respond to the decision to hold a new election, McNair declined and instead sent a social media post alleging the deaths of several DPW workers on the job went ignored by Taylor. Two sanitation employees died on the job in 2024, prompting heightened public scrutiny of conditions for DPW employees.

“This goes deep because each of these families don’t trust the union,” McNair’s post states. “What’s sad is Trevor Taylor was around and didn’t do anything.”

“August 23, 2025 we showed the city of Baltimore how passionate we were as a whole for change!” McNair posted on Sunday. “Now I ask that we elevate that to a number that will be clear to those that opposes us!”

Taylor said he was pleased with the decision to hold a new election.

“I feel like the last time that it was taken from me, and everybody wasn’t doing what they were supposed to do, and I was the only one going by the rules,” Taylor said. “I got the bad end of the stick.”

Taylor’s challenge to the election results also alleged improper “collusion” between McNair and Baltimore Inspector General Isabel Mercedes Cumming, an issue the union’s local election committee refused to weigh in on and instead referred to an AFSCME judicial panel.

On Tuesday, AFSCME’s judicial panel declined to take up the case. According to a letter from the panel reviewed by The Baltimore Banner, the panel argued that Taylor’s request for a new election on the basis of improper procedure and Cumming’s alleged interference were moot because the local union had already opted to rerun the election.

Cumming repeatedly posted on the social media platform X about the election as it approached, stating in one tweet “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).”

Labor law experts called Cumming’s tweets “inappropriate” and said they may have violated a Baltimore code that bars employers from “interfering with, restraining or coercing” union activity.

Cumming defended herself at the time, saying the tweets were posted on her personal account and never endorsed McNair.

“That’s just me suggesting that he’s brave for running,” Cumming told The Banner.

Cumming said Wednesday she stands by her investigations into DPW, which have included interviews with DPW staff who said Local 44 was unresponsive to workers. She declined to comment on the AFSCME judicial panel decision.

On Tuesday, Cumming tweeted images of an opinion from the Baltimore Sun Editorial Board saying it cleared up an “injustice to me.” The opinion called the interference claims “pure political nonsense” and suggested they were a “manufactured P.R. campaign.”