Steward Spotlight: Dianne Rowe (MSEA-SEIU 1989)
Union shop stewards are critical to building a stronger labor movement. Stewards are our frontline defense when it comes to defending and enforcing union contracts, educating and orientating new members, helping members with workplace issues and so much more. Our new “Steward Spotlight” column highlights shop stewards doing the hard work of representing workers in workplaces throughout Maine.
This year's Labor Summer Institute, to be held August 13 - 14 at UMaine in Orono, will focus on Shop Stewards Past, Present & Future and will bring together stewards from across the state. More info will be forthcoming and we encourage all unions to send your stewards - and all members - to the 2025 Summer Institute.
Staff at Child Development Services (CDS) serve a vital role in providing early intervention, special education and related services to Maine children from birth to five years old. The state agency operates through nine regional sites and a state office under the direction of the Maine Department of Education. The 340 CDS employees, who are represented by the Maine Service Employees Association (MSEA-SEIU 1989), provide services to young children who are developmentally delayed, have speech and language impairments, are on the autism spectrum or have health impairments to help prepare them for K-12 schooling.
In recent years, staff at the agency has had to fight to maintain quality services for their clients, from ousting an incompetent director to lobbying legislators to prevent staff cuts. The unit’s President and Chief Steward Dianne Rowe of South Paris has led these efforts and is widely respected as a fierce advocate for her members.
“Dianne is eager to not only represent her coworkers but also organize them,” writes MSEA staff rep Katrina Ray-Saulis. “She successfully worked toward a zero confidence vote against a bad boss, acted politically to fight for legislation important to her unit and assisted in training new stewards all while serving on a bargaining team and as VP of her chapter.”
Rowe works as an individual education program (IEP) administrator out of the Oxford office where she serves children with special needs ages 3-5. She meets with families and writes IEPs, which outline specialized instruction and support services for students with a disability. Her regional office covers towns from Fryeburg and Brownfield to the Bridgton.
Rowe has worked for CDS since 2012, but she also had a couple other careers before that. Previously, she worked for National Semiconductor in South Portland for fourteen years until she voluntarily took a layoff in 1995 to spend more time with her newborn child. Because her job was shipped to South East Asia, she qualified for federal trade adjustment assistance, which covers education and training for workers who lost their jobs to foreign competition.
The program allowed her to stay home with her child days and take classes at night. After earning 90 credits toward a social work degree and running a daycare for a few years while her kids were young, she took a job as an education technician for CDS in 2012. It wasn’t long before she realized that wasn’t her calling, but when she learned of a case manager job opening up. She went back to school to earn her degree and got the job. It was the field her friends and family always thought she would enter because she had first-hand experience with her older brother, who was born without eyes, was non-verbal and didn’t start walking until he was 12 years old.
“That was during a time when they’d put them in wards and forget about them. The only way for parents to get him help was to turn him over to the state,” said Rowe. "They had to legally give up custody. I always said for special education or special needs, ‘been there, done that.' That was my life.”
Rowe’s brother was sent to a care facility in Bangor and then moved to another facility in Orono when he turned 18. Working with children with similar challenges has made her wonder if they could have helped her brother, who never was able to get them because they weren’t available when he was a child.
“I just always think back that if my brother could have had speech therapy, physical therapy or occupational therapy would his life have been better? I don’t know," she said. "But when I see a child who is non verbal at 3 years old when they come onto our caseload and then go to school and don’t need speech anymore I have to wonder."
She says the job is rewarding, but it can also be thankless because parents often expect more than what CDS can provide or what the law allows. For instance, if one child has a speech evaluation and an occupational therapy (OT) evaluation, they can’t qualify for OT if it’s not related to speech, even though they might have scores that would qualify them for OT, unless they are diagnosed for conditions like autism, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder or oppositional defiance disorder. Rowe also been greatly affected by the loss of a child who was receiving CDS services.
“The first little one who I worked was was blind and that’s why I was working with her," she said. "I had a really deep connection, but she had brain cancer and she passed between Christmas and New Years that year. The surgery to remove the tumor was what caused her to lose her sight.”
Growing into the Role of Shop Steward
Rowe jokingly blames her MSEA staff rep Tim McGuire for her becoming a union steward. When she first joined the union there were only 20 actual union members in a unit. Workers constantly were retaliated against for speaking up and didn’t feel supported by their union. But McGuire helped Rowe develop her leadership skills as a steward and her coworker encouraged her to become Vice President of the unit. During her tenure, union membership rose from 20 members to 171 members out of 272 union eligible employees.
For a while she served as VP, treasurer and the only steward representing CDS workers at its ten locations from York to Aroostook County. But through the hard work of organizing, the union now has six stewards throughout the state. The stewards each take turns handling cases and at times Rowe has driven all the way to Machias for a disciplinary hearing. But most of the time it can be done remotely on Zoom.
She said she has attended various steward trainings over the years with mixed results, but most of what she has learned was through hands on experience. Most of the job is just listening to members and hearing their concerns, she says.
“Most people just want to be heard. Most of them can stand up for themselves, but just knowing you heard them, you recognize their issue and you’re there if they need you is 99 percent of it,” said Rowe. “I’m not afraid to stand up to management and say, “Hey, tell me why this is being done' and let staff know you really are behind them, but the most important thing is just listening to people.”
A big test of leadership came when the agency’s former director created such a toxic work environment that CDS employees couldn't take it anymore. Thanks to Rowe's organizing, 96 percent of CDS workers across the state took a no-confidence vote in the director in 2023 citing high staff turnover, impossible caseloads, lack of trust, apparent nepotism in hiring and personnel decisions, and other concerns. The director was put on leave and eventually retired.
Rowe said it’s critical for stewards to know the contract inside and out and to always be responsive to members, even if the union can't do a lot about the problem.
“If it’s a coworker, go to your supervisor and if it’s your supervisor and a lot of people have complaints, let’s get the team together and let’s fix this,” she said.
Rowe is currently on her seventh contract negotiation and employee concerns range from management’s resistance to allowing for more telework to changes to certification requirements and moving CDS to school districts, which they feel would negatively impact services. Employees working remotely have also been frustrated by management requirements that they log every task they do during the day, which isn’t required for people working in the office. Rowe estimates that the extra paperwork takes an extra a half hour to 45 minutes of her day.
The first Tuesday of each month Rowe meets with staff and they discuss issues in the workplace or plan an action like writing to their legislators.
“It’s like being a shop steward on a regular basis because if they’re having issues I want to be on top of it, she said. “I don’t want to find out two months from now.”