Municipal employees throughout northern and central Maine have been organizing unions with AFSCME Council 93 over the past year. Workers at the town of Orono, Knox County Regional Airport, the town of Easton in Aroostook County, Bangor Airport and Somerset County dispatch are all in various stages of forming unions or bargaining for first contracts.
AFSCME 93 organizer John Nuttall says a lot of workers are contacting the union because they’re simply fed up with poor management and low wages.
“A lot of what’s driving this trend is the need for better wages and working conditions,” said Nuttall. “There’s one group I was organizing that had two pay-scales — the “friend” pay scale” and the “not friend” pay scale and it was a $2 an hour difference. When you don’t have a union, management can do whatever they feel like, including playing favorites. If you’re making $2 less an hour for the same job because you’re not buddies with somebody, that’s not right.”
A 2019 municipal card check law, which the Maine AFL-CIO worked to pass, has also made it easier for municipal workers to form unions. Under the law, if a majority of municipal workers sign union cards they are recognized as a union rather than having to go through the long, drawn-out election process, which gives the employer more time to carry out anti-union campaigns.
If you know anyone who would like to form a union please fill out this form and we will work to connect you to an organizer!