Union Members Turn Out for Statewide Organizing Call

Over 50 union members attended the Maine AFL-CIO’s Statewide Organizing Call on June 16 where we discussed organizing and strategizing to fight back against the federal government’s attacks on our rights and economic security.

“It was a great space to bring federal workers and other union members from across the labor movement together to talk about the moment that we’re in and all of the challenges Maine workers are facing given what’s going on at the federal level,” said Maine AFL-CIO Organizing Director Sarah Bigney McCabe.

Attacks on Federal Workers’ Pensions & Workers’ Rights

Several federal workers talked about how proposed cuts in President Trump’s so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” are going to impact workers in Maine. The President has set a deadline of July 4th for Congress to pass the bill.

APWU 458 President Scott Adams talked about some of the very harmful cuts to federal worker pensions in the budget bill. The Senate Republican version of the mill would make future federal employees at-will and force them to pay 9.4% toward retirement, or 14.4% if they want to retain their civil service rights.

As at-will employees, they won’t have civil service protections against unfair treatment and disciplinary actions such as due process, protection against discrimination, and rights to organize and join a union. For those who opt not to pay for these rights, they can be fired for any reason, including politics. The bill gives the president sweeping authority for ten years to reorganize or eliminate federal agencies, with $100 million to the Office of Management and Budget to implement these closures and no clear congressional oversight.

In addition, the bill imposes a 10 percent tax on all union dues collected through payroll, and even targets Combined Federal Campaign donations and other nonprofit and charitable contributions. It would also require unions to pay the entire cost of official time for union representatives, including salary and benefits, plus all union office space and resources. These costs are to be set by agencies and cannot be appealed. Unions that cannot pay would be debarred. That’s why AFGE has called the “Big Beautiful Bill” the “Big Retaliation Bill.”

Collective Bargaining Rights and VA Cuts

Togus VA Medical Center employee Dan Gutierrez (AFGE 2610) and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) worker Bill Reiley discussed the Trump administration’s illegal elimination of their collective bargaining rights. On Tuesday, a federal judge indefinitely blocked President Donald Trump’s effort to terminate the collective bargaining rights for more than a million federal employees. Judge James Donato of the US District Court in San Francisco granted the preliminary injunction requested by a coalition of unions representing workers whose collective bargaining rights were stripped under Trump’s executive order.

In his decision, which clashes with a May ruling by a DC Circuit Court of Appeals backing the Trump administration, Donato wrote that the unions “demonstrated a serious question as to whether their First Amendment rights have been violated” and that they would face “a strong likelihood of irreparable harm from the loss of their collective bargaining and allied rights.”

Gutierrez also talked about how the VA’s plans to cut 83,000 jobs will harm services for military veterans.

Clean Energy Tax Credits

IBEW 1253 Business Manager Nick Paquet talked about how bleak the picture looks for his members in Maine due to economic uncertainty and the elimination of the clean energy tax cuts and incentives for clean energy. Large numbers of IBEW members in Maine are laid off this summer due to threats to clean energy tax credits, tariffs and general economic uncertainty. The Senate Republican plan would eliminate billions of dollars in tax credits for wind and solar power and electric vehicles.

As the NY Times reports, fossil-fuel lobbyists and Trump are demanding that Congress enact even deeper cuts to clean-energy subsidies, or even scrap them entirely. Companies have so far canceled $15.5 billion in proposed factories and clean-energy projects this year, according to an analysis by E2, a nonpartisan group of business leaders and investors. As Paquet explained, this is a self inflicted political attack on jobs and our economy and it doesn’t have to be this way. Clean energy and climate jobs are our best chance to rebuild a union manufacturing economy and fight catastrophic climate change.

Medicaid Cuts Threaten Rural Healthcare, Will Raise Health Care Costs for Everyone

Registered nurse Ashlynn Ward of the Maine State Nurses Association discussed how cuts to Medicaid in Trump’s budget would harm patients and devastate hospitals, clinics, nursing homes and home health agencies that heavily rely on MaineCare reimbursements. One analysis shows that cuts could cause 477,000 health care jobs to be lost in 2026 alone.

Medicaid is the single largest source of health care coverage in the US. It is the primary payer for 42 percent of births in the United States each year and provides health care for nearly half of all children in our country. A new analysis by the AFL-CIO finds that the Medicaid cuts Senate Republican leaders are pushing through the budget reconciliation process would raise health care costs for everyone, including an estimation of up to $485 a year for the 179 million people with employment-based insurance.

The research shows that if it becomes law, the bill would result in higher premiums, less access to emergency rooms and fewer providers available to provide care — not only for people who use Medicaid, but for millions more working people across the country.

In addition to the workers’ roundtable and small group discussions,, attendees practiced making brief speeches about why they oppose the budget bill and then called Senator Susan Collins’ office to tell her to vote ‘no.’ Collectively, the group made commitments to get 125 more people to call Collins.

“Although the picture we’re painting is in some ways bleak, it was in many ways really invigorating to get people together,” said Bigney McCabe. “All in all people really seemed to enjoy hearing from and talking to each other as this is a pretty overwhelming moment.”

Come to the Next Labor Civics Cohort - July 14

The next Labor Civics Cohort will be on Monday July 14, at 6:30pm andfocus on the U.S. Postal Service, celebrating it's 250th anniversary as it faces major threats to its ability to provide the services we all depend on.