AFSCME 926 Members Win Contract with Raises & One Additional Week Vacation

After two years of organizing and advocating, Bangor city employees (AFSCME 926) have won an additional week of vacation in their new contract. In 2024, the city moved all levels of vacation up one week for non-union city employees to improve recruitment and retention, but not for unionized workers.

After the union pushed back and demanded that management negotiate this benefit with unionized workers, management agreed to open the contracts only if the workers were willing to give up their comp time in exchange for the vacation time. However, over the past two years AFSCME Local 926 members stood strong and refused to back down.

“We didn't want to give up our comp time because we're the only department in the city that's on call 24/7 for six months out of the year during the winter,” explained Local 926 President Brian Harris. “They finally gave in during negotiations and they gave us that extra week without us giving up anything. They said that the city was wrong to withhold it from the other departments.”

In addition, Bangor city employees won:

• A 20 percent wage increase over three years. 12 percent in year one, 4 percent in year three and 4 percent in year four.
• An increase of 50 cents per hour for commercial drivers’ licenses
• A $1200 bonus for people at the top of the pay scale from performance review.
• A $25 increase for boot allowance.

The union worked with the Eastern Maine Labor Council and Maine AFL-CIO to organize union members and  community allies to go to City Council meetings and advocate for the workers.

“I would write emails to the council about every two weeks. I would pick three council members and I would send emails to them,” said Harris. “Every once in a while, I would write to the entire council including the city manager and I did that for almost four months. We just kept at them to let them know that we weren’t going to give up.”

Harris said employee retention has been a big problem with employee turnover and hopes the new contract will help with recruitment and retention. Local 926 represents over 100 employees, including municipal workers, airport customer service representatives, airport operations officers, airport ramp attendants, airport dispatchers, airport security, airport mechanics, and airfield maintenance.