MaineDOT Workers, Community Members Picket Over Management’s Plan to Close Highway Maintenance Camp in Jay

PHOTO: MDOT workers & supporters picket in Wilton on Tuesday.

Over 30 workers from MaineDOT, fellow union members and community supporters picketed outside MaineDOT’s Region 3 headquarters in Wilton Tuesday to protest management’s announced closure of the Jay MaineDOT highway camp and reassignment of five Jay union members to neighboring camps.

The five workers at the Jay camp have been told their last work day in Jay will be March 21 and that they are to report to neighboring MaineDOT camps beginning March 24. The impacted workers called their reassignments retaliation for calling out management’s hostile-work environment at the Jay camp. Workers from other MaineDOT regions joined in the picket.

Tuesday’s picket happened as members of the Maine Service Employees Association (MSEA-SEIU  1989), the union representing the impacted MaineDOT workers, renewed their demand that management reverse its decision, address workplace concerns and respond to the workers’ concerns in good faith.

“MaineDOT camps in other regions are watching closely to see what management at MaineDOT is doing to support employees,” said MSEA-SEIU Steward and MaineDOT Transportation Worker Thomas Frank of Patten, who took a day off from work to drive from Aroostook County to picket in support of the Jay workers. “My coworkers and I are really disappointed about how poorly management is treating our fellow highway crew in Jay. Retaliating against them for speaking up over a hostile work environment is just plain wrong. MaineDOT can and should do the right thing by calling off the closure.”

“The cost-savings info that MaineDOT management is using to justify these reassignments doesn’t add up,” added MSEA-SEIU Member and MaineDOT Transportation Worker Joe Cautillo, who is among the five workers whom management targeted for reassignment. “It’s clear that management is retaliating against us for speaking out against a hostile work environment in Jay. At least one of us was seriously injured and management refused to take our concerns seriously. Management needs to start treating us with the respect we have earned. Rather than make March 21st our last day at the Jay camp, management should resolve to make it our first day of a hostile-free and toxic-free work environment.”

The Jay maintenance camp has been operational for decades, yet this month, employees who have been vocal about workplace issues are being transferred and the maintenance of Jay’s roads will be reassigned to employees from different areas who aren’t as familiar with the roads and emergency response needs in the community. Despite MaineDOT’s claim that the announced reassignments will not impact operations, workers from different locations will now be reassigned to Jay , proving that the need for maintenance and plowing remains unchanged. The announced reassignments disrupt workers’ lives while jeopardizing public safety.

MSEA-SEIU Member and MaineDOT Transportation Worker Jason Baldwin, one of the employees being reassigned from another camp to Jay, said, “I’ve been plowing the same route in Dixfield for eight years. I know it inside and out. Moving me isn’t about efficiency—it’s about punishing workers in Jay who spoke up for themselves. I wasn't even involved and now I have to suffer the consequences of the department's retaliation.”