Members of the American Red Cross Blood Services Unit (MSEA-SEIU 1989) in Bangor have ratified a new two-year contract with substantial wage increase. The new contract increases the starting hourly pay to $16.49 from where it has previously been at $14.61. Under the new contract, wages increase for current employees anywhere from 50 cents an hour to $2.14 an hour. Red Cross workers have two contracts - one with the local Red Cross and one with the national organization.
"Over the last few contracts we never received a pay increase at the local level, so this was a really big win for us,” said Kristen Erickson, a Red Cross worker and shop steward with the Maine Service Employees Union. “This was a really hard fought contract. Although we’re one of the smallest units, we’re willing to fight for what we deserve. Just telling members ‘look, we can do this’ and getting our staff on board has been really empowering for all of us.”
Bangor Red Cross workers run blood drives across the state, including collecting, processing, packing and shipping donated blood to Massachusetts. Erickson said one of the other victories in the new contract was defeating a proposal by management to remove a provision that requires the organization to ensure workers still get paid if a blood drive is canceled within 24 hours of its start time.
“We had to fight really hard to keep that,” she said.
Meanwhile, Erickson and her coworkers are also active in worksite actions as part of the national contract bargaining campaign of several unions that represent workers at the Red Cross. That contract includes their health care as well as pay provisions.