The Maine Legislature's Appropriations Committee voted on Friday to recommend funding to establish a new Labor and Community Education Center at the University of Southern Maine. LD 1816, sponsored by House Speaker Ryan Fecteau (D-Biddeford), provides $400,000 to establish the Charles A. Scontras Labor Center at the University of Southern Maine and $100,000 for the Bureau of Labor Education at the University of Maine to expand its valuable work in labor studies.
The measure previously passed the House and Senate and is expected to be approved for final procedural votes early next week.
The labor education center at USM will offer labor education for students, unions and especially the community at large as well as host regular trainings and workshops, policy seminars, working class oral history projects, conferences, symposia, speakers and films that address issues of concern to Maine's working people such as labor law and workers’ rights, discrimination, labor history, quality of work life and lots more.
We would like to thank the members of the Appropriations Committee and House Speaker Ryan Fecteau for his leadership and determination to make this dream a reality so we can educate future generations of workers to understand their rights, the value of their labor and our proud history of collective struggles to achieve the American Dream.