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Maine AFL-CIO Legislative Priorities Focus on Federal Workers, Retirement Security, Understaffing, a Fair Budget & more

Andy O’Brien
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With the 132nd Maine Legislature off and running, the Maine AFL-CIO is supporting a comprehensive set of pro-worker bills that will improve jobs and quality of life for working people across the state. This session comes at a time when working people are facing an affordability crisis, driven by skyrocketing housing, childcare, food and health care costs.

In our 2025 Legislative Agenda, we will be urging the Maine Legislature to avoid deep cuts to programs that make life more affordable and take bold action to improve quality of life for working Mainers.

These are some of the Maine AFL-CIO's top priorities for the 2025 Legislative Session

  • Alleviate financial pressure on state and federal workers during shutdowns by supporting legislation to provide federal and state workers with no interest loans during government shutdowns. Federal and state employees don’t cause government shutdowns and they shouldn’t be pawns in partisan games. During government shutdowns, state and federal workers deserve temporary relief until they get paid again.
  • Address chronic understaffing in state government by improving the compensation and classification system for state executive branch workers and boost their wages. We will work with the Maine Service Employees Association (SEIU 1989) on recruitment and retention issues that will improve wages, working conditions and staffing in state government, where 1 in 6 positions are currently vacant.
  • Improve retirement security for mental health workers. Workers at Maine's state psychiatric hospitals (Riverview and Dorothea Dix), as well as those that do the same work in the field, do stressful, difficult, and dangerous work. The state acknowledges that there are certain jobs, like being a corrections officer, that you cannot do forever. Despite dealing with the same population of patients as corrections officers, and having fewer protections from violence on the job, mental health workers do not have access to the 25/55 retirement plans. Working with AFSCME and MSEA-SEIU units, we will fight to fix this by adding mental health, psychiatric nurses, and crisis workers to the 1998 special retirement plan.
  • Win funding to improve working conditions for workers employed in higher education. Working with unions representing adjuncts, graduate workers and other workers in the University of Maine system we will fight to increase the state appropriation to the University of Maine system to at least keep pace with inflation. This will help ensure that all employees in the UMaine System earn a wage that allows them to meet their basic needs with their full-time earnings, without needing to rely on state-funded services.
  • A Fair Budget. Governor Mills has proposed a budget that shorts workers and families. We are particularly concerned that at a time when Mainers struggle with soaring costs, this proposed budget would make it harder to find affordable child care and health care, leaving workers undervalued and underpaid. We will fight for a more fair approach, where the wealthy and multinational corporations pay their fair share.
  • Protect Workers Compensation for Firefighters and Emergency First Responders.Maine first responders have been covered by a rebuttable presumption for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but that law is set to expire in 2025. We will work with IAFF and other unions to make this pro-worker law permanent.
  • Nurse Staffing legislation to limit the number of patients that nurses must take on their daily assignments, based on patient need and the severity of a patient’s condition. Studies show that when RNs are forced to care for too many patients at one time, patients are at higher risk of preventable medical errors.
  • Address the affordability of child care and improve access to child care for workers by growing childcare wage supplements and investing in Maine's childcare subsidy.
  • Raise Standards in Construction - we are working with the Maine Building and Construction trades unions on a number of priorities to address wage theft, raise standards, continue to lead on labor and climate issues and tackle key issues like the need for more housing in Maine.
  • Expand the use of pre-apprenticeship programs in Maine to open up good union jobs to more workers historically denied these opportunities. We will work to increase funding for pre-apprenticeship programs through the Maine Department of Labor.

We are also working with rail unions on safety priorities, continuing to push for basic labor protections for farmworkers and opposing bills to weaken unions and workers rights.