Solidarity Center in Jay Seeking Volunteers

PHOTO: UPIU Local 14 retirees at Solidarity Center in Jay show their support for Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity & Empowerment (CAUSE), who recently filed cards to hold a union election at RDU1 in Garner, North Carolina.

The Solidarity Center in Jay has recently been granted 501c3 nonprofit status and is seeking volunteers to help create programming, fix up the building and fundraise. The historic former UPIU Local 14 union hall has been kept up for nearly 40 years thanks to the dues paid by veterans of the 1987-88 International Paper Strike.

For many years, the retirees have met in the hall on Tuesdays to have coffee. In 2023, the Western Maine Labor Council, AFL-CIO voted to purchase the hall to be used as the permanent headquarters of the Western Maine Labor Council and a center for labor history and learning. Currently, a group of union members, including the Local 14 retirees, are meeting every Tuesday from 9am to noon to discuss next steps for the center and cleaning the hall out.

“Every week we’ve had a little work day. We’ve cleaned out three junk closets and have taken three loads of junk to the dump,” said Western Maine labor Council President Linda Deane. “We’re coming up with plans to make an ADA accessible bathroom and what we’re going to do first.”

The group is also working on ways to raise money to do all of the necessary repairs for the building, including fixing parts of it that have rotted and repairing the labor mural on the outside. The organization’s goal is to run labor education programs for schools and the community out of the Solidarity Center.

If you would like to volunteer to help out the Solidarity Center contact Linda Deane: sterlin at roadrunner dot com or 207-491-8168.