Vote for Labor-Endorsed Candidates for State Legislature

If you haven’t voted yet, we urge you to make a plan to vote to do so this coming Tuesday and consider where candidates stand on issues that impact your pocket book. If you are unsure of where candidates stand on labor issues, visit this website to learn about labor-endorsed candidates, from federal to local elections, who will fight to strengthen workers’ rights and our economic security.

We know that wealthy interests are desperate to distract us from their corporate greed by spreading fear and division this election. That’s why it is so critically important to educate ourselves, our coworkers, friends and family about the stark choices we face. How we vote this election will determine whether we are able to continue to build victories or defend ourselves from political attacks on our rights and worker protections.

Here is a full list of our endorsements for the Maine House and Senate!

During the past six years, our pro-labor majorities in the Maine Legislature have made significant improvements to wages, benefits and our right to form unions. These victories have included new laws that:

• Will provide up to 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave to 90 percent of Maine workers.

• Provide earned time off for 139,000 workers who didn’t previously have the benefit. Under the new law, these workers accrue one hour of time off for every 40 hours worked after working for the same employer for 120 days.

• Will provide more housing opportunities by investing $100 million in affordable housing and reduce regulatory burdens to building more housing.

• Ensure clean energy projects are built under strong, industry- leading labor standards, including Project Labor Agreements and other benchmarks that prohibit temporary workers and independent contractors. It mandates that workers are paid unions’ collectively bargained total package rate with comparable health and retirement benefits, safety training, and participation in registered apprenticeship programs.

• Create good paying jobs and a well-trained clean energy workforce by requiring the use of registered apprenticeship programs on large-scale energy projects.

• Created the Union Construction Academy of Maine, which is transforming lives by providing union career opportunities to workers who wouldn’t normally have them, such as women, people of color, people with disabilities, veterans and New Americans.

• Fund the Charlie Scontras Center for Labor and Community Education Center which is doing fabulous work promoting labor education and providing organizing trainings, workshops and seminars on issues impacting working people and our unions.

• Make childcare more affordable, increase the number of childcare options for working parents and raise wages for childcare workers.

• Improve pensions and wages for state employees.

• Allow workers to refuse to attend an employer “captive audience” meeting focused on union busting, politics or religion without fear of being disciplined or fired.

• Strengthen enforcement of labor laws and crack down on employers that violate wage and hour laws. Provide workers with stronger legal remedies when their wages have been stolen by employers.

• Make it easier for corrections officers with heart disease or hypertension to prove that they contracted it due to stressful nature of their employment, ensuring that they have good health care for work-related injuries.

• Modernize Maine’s unemployment insurance program to ensure that Maine workers receive timely and adequate unemployment benefits. The new law provides supplemental UI benefits for dependent children, improves eligibility for partial benefits and has improved the number of laid off workers who actually receive unemployment benefits.

• Created the Peer Workforce Navigator program to help laid off workers access unemployment benefits and connect them to good union jobs and training programs.

• Fund the construction of affordable, energy-efficient housing built by union workers under a project labor agreement.

• Strengthen prevailing wage laws for municipal projects receiving $50,000 or more in state funds to ensure workers are paid more fairly.

• Improve the Retired County and Municipal Law Enforcement Officers and Municipal Firefighters Health Insurance Program, which supports healthcare coverage for retired law enforcement officers and firefighters who meet certain eligibility criteria. The law increases the state share of the premium subsidy for enrollees from 45 percent to 55 percent, requires that new employees be notified about the program and makes it easier to enroll in the program.

In addition, our pro-labor majorities have defeated corporate right-to-work for less bills multiple times and made more progress than ever on a proposal to require safe nurse patient ratios in hospitals.

We can’t afford to go back. It’s critically important that we elect a pro-labor majority to the Maine Legislature because if we don’t, all of the progress we’ve made will be stalled or even rolled back.