2023 Working Class Hero Award: Patrick Carleton, USW 4-9

PHOTO: Pat Carleton (right) with former ME AFL-CIO President Don Berry.

This year’s Working Class Hero Award goes to Patrick Carleton, the outgoing Vice President of the Maine AFL-CIO and former President of United Steelworkers Local 4-9, for being a tremendous local union leader, doing the spade work of building the labor movement and singing with the best of them!

Pat is a longtime leader in the labor movement and a strong advocate for working people from the shop floor to the statehouse and across the community,” says Cynthia Phinney, President of the Maine AFL-CIO. “And during his entire time as President of his Local, President of USW Maine Labor Council, and the Vice President of the Maine AFL-CIO, Pat also been a rank and file worker himself, even while fighting for workers’ rights and standing up for his fellow members on the shop floor. He is inspiration to all of us in the labor movement.”

A pipefitter by trade, Pat got his start as a contractor at the Somerset mill with the Plumbers and Pipefitters. He began working there full time in 1994, around the same time it was purchased by South Africa-based Sappi Limited. Shortly after Carleton was hired full time, he became a shop steward. It was then that a period he calls “the troubles” began. In the mid 1990s Sappi hired veteran union busters to gut decades of contract language, force employees to work on Christmas, eliminate the apprentice program and accept a litany of other concessions.

In spite of the anti-union climate at the time, Sappi workers fought back, waging a global corporate campaign against the company. Eventually, the company fired the union busters and things calmed down.

“Pat was always active in everything and it didn’t matter where we had strife in the labor movement, he was there,” said retired USW staff representative Duane Lugdon, who has known Carleton since the mid 1980s.

In 2004 Carleton was elected Executive Vice President of Local 4-9 and shortly after took over as president after former President Rod Hiltz left work at the mill. Carleton soon found that his leadership experience in coaching and running various organizations came in handy in organizing union members.

“Pat is absolutely a dedicated trade unionist. I can’t think of an organizing drive either internal or external that Pat was not a part of,” said Lugdon. “Having sat through a lot of negotiations as a staff rep with Pat, it was obvious to me that he was a great communicator and had a great relationship with his members. He really ran a great ship there for a long time.”

In addition to his work with USW, Carleton worked with the Maine Fair Trade Campaign to advocate for trade agreements that respect workers rights and was heavily involved with the Maine Labor Group on Health, where he a promoted workplace health and safety trainings for workers. Carleton also helped out with the annual Solidarity Harvest at Thanksgiving time and helped organize USW 4-9’s annual charitable drive for veterans and families in need during the holiday season.

He also encouraged rank and file members to be involved in the broader labor movement and developed new leaders, whether it was volunteering to staff the Maine AFL-CIO’s table at the Common Ground Fair or attending Labor Lobby Day, Labor Summer Institute or our conventions. He did all of this work while still working full time as a pipefitter because he believed that he was a more effective as a leader by working every day on the shop floor with the rank and file.

Carleton retired from his job at the Somerset Paper Mill in May, 2022 after helping to negotiate the best USW 4-9 contract in decades.

“He never had a full-time officer position, so between his union work and work at the mill, he burned the candle at both ends for many years," said Lugdon. "I’m just really glad that Pat is getting some retirement years and some enjoyment in life. He did a great job for USW and we absolutely always appreciated it.”