Governor & Legislative Leaders Speak About Pro-Labor Accomplishments at COPE Convention

Speaking to the COPE Convention last Friday, Governor Mills and legislative leaders touted their labor accomplishments and contrasted the past four years to the previous eight years when the LePage administration waged a war on workers and our unions.

Governor Janet Mills pointed to her executive order to expand MaineCare to more than 93,000 people in Maine, after the former governor had spent years blocking it. She noted that her administration opposed destructive anti-worker legislation that her opponent supports, like union-busting “right to work” for less bills and a sub minimum wage to undermine wages for all workers. She pointed out that LePage, who once called state workers “corrupt,” is already talking about laying off state employees if he’s elected because he believes“we have way too many.”

“In his last months before he left office in 2018 he tried to submit a bill to make Maine a “right-to-work” state. Don’t forget that,” Mills remarked. “… His campaign, his advisors, his media people, try to portray him as a changed man — a kinder gentler version of a man we knew for eight years. But we know better. When asked what his next term would look like he said ‘It’ll be just like the last ones.' He has not changed his stripes.”

Mills noted we were able to make so many pro-worker accomplishments because she appointed pro-labor staff to work with union members rather than antagonizing them.

“As in all things in life, we’re not going to agree on everything, on every action, on every bill,” she said, “but I commit to you several things. First, you will never see me throw tantrums, throwing insults at you or your members or resorting to pettiness or vindictiveness. Second, I will continue to seek conversation and collaboration with you and your members. And third, I’ll continue to work with you to find common ground and take common sense steps towards meaningful change for working people of Maine.”

House Speaker Ryan said some of the Legislature’s proudest accomplishments were passing bills to extend workers compensation for firefighters and other emergency workers with PTSD, requiring project labor agreements for affordable housing projects, providing presumptive workers compensation benefits to corrections officers with hypertension, eliminating the sub minimum wage for people with disabilities, creating a peer workforce navigator program to connect Maine job seekers to unemployment benefits and good-paying union jobs, training and union apprenticeships. 

Fecteau, who formally chaired the Legislature’s Labor and Housing Committee, said that when LePage talks about firing state employees, he means workers in the Department of Labor who enforce labor protections and keep employers accountable. He noted that former Governor LePage opposed every single effort to increase the minimum wage and in 2016 refused to even raise it to $8 per hour.

“I asked LePage’s staffer ‘when is the right time to raise the minimum wage?’ And her response was ‘maybe in ten years, we’ll think about it,’” recalled Fecteau of his interactions with the LePage administration as chair of the Labor & Housing Committee. “That administration would have been fine with leaving the state’s minimum wage at $7.50 until 2025. I don’t want to go back because we have made tremendous progress over these past four years.”

Senator President Troy Jackson told the convention that labor finally has a seat in Augusta that it didn’t have during the LePage administration. 

“Obviously, we could work with you, but the administration was as anti-labor as you can imagine,” said Jackson. “They didn’t want workers to step out of line.”

He recalled what it was like for he and his father to work as loggers far from home and seldom have time to spend with their families. Jackson said the sadness he felt at being forced to spend that time away from family was what continues to drive his work on workers' rights issues today.

“Our lives matter. Our families’ lives matter,” said Jackson. “It’s having security at the job, making sure you come home or just having the time to go out to those basketball games and graduations. Those things matter and how they happen is we have working class unions that protect us and allow all of us to have those opportunities. It doesn’t matter if you’re not unionized. If there’s a union in the area, that sets the standard and other jobs follow.”

Jackson said the strength of unions in Maine depends on having a pro-labor majority in the Legislature who will fight for workers and protect our rights.

“What we can expect if they’re successful is they’re going to immediately come after our rights and they’re going to give more tax cuts to the wealthy,” he said. “I ain’t trying to inspire you. I’m just trying to tell you what’s going to happen if we don't win.”