Susan Collins’ Corporate Lobbyist Husband Was a Union Buster During IP Paper Strike

Susan Collins’ lobbyist husband Tom Daffron has received a lot of attention for securing over $76 million in federal contracts, with much of it coming from agencies that Collins oversees. The couple also profits handsomely from the Iran War, which Collins voted to support in March, due to their investments in oil and gas. Daffron also recently worked for disgraced campaign fundraiser Scott Reed, who was exposed by ProPublica last month for arranging a pay-to-play scheme with corrupt defense contractor Martin Kao.

But did you know that Daffron worked as a union buster on the 1987-88 International Paper Strike in Jay? In an interview with Bowdoin College in 2009, Daffron said he left his job at Republican Senator Bill Cohen’s office to work for International Paper as its Director of Government and Public Relations “for nine or ten months” in 1988.

“The first time I left was in 1988, I went to work for International Paper,” said Daffron. “And I went there for nine or ten months, and we had a big issue up there, big fight on decertifying the union and all that kind of stuff, there were all kinds of strikes going on and it was nasty business. I worked up there for a little less than a year.”

Daffron joined IP in 1988 amidst a historic strike by workers at IP’s Androscoggin Mill in Jay. 1,250 workers from Local 14 United Paperworkers International Union began a strike at the mill in 1987 after the company announced moves to eliminate double pay for working on Sundays and holidays as well as eliminating 178 jobs at the plant. Daffron served as IP’s “principal liaison” with the media and Maine state government officials. He said he developed “a public affairs strategy” for IP as the company was “mired in a long labor dispute that had been damaging its corporate image.”

During the strike IP engaged in an aggressive advertising strategy spending up to $20,000 per week on newspaper ads and television spots that featured professional actors playing Mainers who opposed the strike. IP continued operations at the Andro mill hiring over 1,000 replacement workers while Local 14 led marches and launched “massive marches,” turned their weekly meetings into rallies and launched “an all-out war in the courts and press against IP's environmental record.”

Striking workers faced financial hardship, relying on food banks to help feed their families, cashing in savings and retirement funds, and taking short term work when available to stay afloat. New York Times dubbed it “one of the most bitter strikes of the 1980's” as “families and lifelong friends” in the small Jay community, “turned against each other along pro- and anti-company lines.”

Despite success in building “national momentum” – Local 14 workers called off the strike in 1988 after 17 months and accepted all of IP’s demands. Some union workers “trickled” back to work at the mill but in 1992 employees at the mill, largely replacement workers hired during the strike, voted to dissolve the union. The strike’s failure had a devastating impact on the labor movement in Maine.

Daffron served as Senator Bill Cohen’s chief of staff and hired the 21-year old Susan Collins as an intern in 1974. Daffron served as consultant on Collins early campaigns and made all all her commercials. She described her future husband as the “driving Force” behind Her 1996 Senate Campaign in a 1999 interview with the Portland Press Herald. Daffron ran Collins’ Leadership PAC, Dirigo PAC, from its launch In 2003 To 2012.