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Committee to Hear Bill to Make Anti-Union “Captive Audience Meetings” Optional

Andy O’Brien
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Too often employers force workers to attend anti-union meetings during work hours where they cajole, coerce, scare, intimidate and even threaten workers to prevent them from exercising their First Amendment rights to organize. This tactic has recently been deployed during union drives at Maine Medical Center, Shalom House and many other workplaces in Maine.

On Tuesday, May 9 at 1pm, the Labor and Housing Committee will hear a bill that would crack down on employee intimidation during union drives. LD 1756, sponsored by Sen. Mattie Daughtry (D-Cumberland), would strengthen our Constitutional right to Freedom of Association by prohibiting employers from forcing employees to attend these type of captive audience meetings to be lectured about unions, politics and religion.

Speaking to the Maine Beacon , Shalom House worker Tim Stokes said the organization put workers under extreme pressure during its ultimately unsuccessful union drive.

“The tension in the workplace was just exhausting,” he said. “I think that right now, we’re all still just kind of recovering from that feeling.”

Shalom House workers withdrew their petition for a union election last month as thecompany waged an all-out war against the union. The publicly-funded nonprofit also hired high-priced, anti-worker attorney Rick Finberg from the Bennett Law Firm to hold captive audience meetings with the workers. Stokes says he will be testifying in support of LD 1756, so other workers don’t have to be subjected to the same kind of intimidation and coercion he and his colleagues experienced.

“The whole point of unionization is that it’s a choice. It’s just an unethical thing to have someone who’s in a position of power over you tell you what they want you to do,” he told the Beacon. “Because the choice to form a union isn’t supposed to be about what management wants.”

If you would like to testify in support of this critical employee First Amendment bill, please email adam at maineaflcio dot org