Bangor board takes on worker rights
Photo/Jason P. Smith
Jack McKay, a veteran labor organizer, says many Maine workers fear losing their jobs if they attempt to form a union
Amid the depths of the longest recession since World War II, a group of community leaders in the Bangor area began meeting in 2009 to discuss the plight of workers, many of whom traded manufacturing jobs for service-sector employment and found themselves worse off than before.
Nearly two years later, on Jan. 17, Martin Luther King’s birthday, the group unveiled the Worker Rights Board of Eastern Maine. Its mission: “To provide a community forum to legitimize workers’ voices and to help remedy workplace injustices.”
While the board has drawn support from labor and legislators, it is not a lobbying group, nor does it attempt to organize workplaces.
Its goal is to serve as a regional clearinghouse for worker concerns, at a time when Maine’s labor environment has attracted the national spotlight due to Gov. Paul LePage’s symbolic decision to remove a mural depicting the state’s labor history from a state building. Most depictions of labor-management issues rely heavily on metaphors of struggle and conflict, but the worker rights board sees communication as a primary unmet need.
“A lot of workers don’t feel like they’re heard,” says Julie Grab, a retired Bangor High School English teacher who served on the 32-member organizing committee. “They don’t believe anyone is there to listen to them when they’re having a problem on the job.”
Not every problem is the result of conflicting viewpoints, she says. She recalls one instance where an employee called the board questioning an employer’s actions. After discovering that the issue involved a legal violation, Grab called the employer, who was appreciative of being set straight, she says.
That isn’t always the case, says Jack McKay, a veteran organizer who is president of the Eastern Maine Labor Council and executive director of Food and Medicine, an assistance group for unorganized and former union workers. “Sometimes [employers] aren’t so happy to hear from us,” says McKay, but he adds they generally agree to follow the law.
A recent case involved a construction worker being paid under the table who had no workers’ compensation coverage and was subsequently assessed payroll taxes normally covered by the employer. “The employer paid $500 to settle taxes and other issues,” McKay says. “He knew he was in the wrong.”
The most important function of the worker rights board, says Rep. Adam Goode, a second-term Democrat from Bangor, is to listen. “A lot of the time in Augusta we spend a great deal of time talking. When we’re campaigning, going door to door and listening to people’s stories, we may be doing a more important part of our job.”
By design, the board is a diverse group of Bangor-area professionals, including several business owners and at least an equal number of church leaders.
“We put people in touch with the services that are available, what government or nonprofit agencies they can call,” McKay says. “Often, workers don’t know where to turn.”
And the issues are not necessarily limited to economic ones. “There’s just no question that these are issues of faith,” says the Rev. Mark Doty, pastor of the Hammond Street Congregational Church in Bangor. Doty sees “a moral dimension” in the work people do. Amid the current economic crisis, many workers “find themselves on the margins,“ he says.
One of the board business owners, commercial farmer Paul Volckhausen, has run Happytown Farm on 75 acres in North Orland since 1981, producing organic vegetables, eggs, wool and maple syrup.Volckhausen employs half a dozen workers during the peak season, and says, “I hope my employees won’t have a complaint to take to the board.” But, he says, “I really do believe workers need a stronger voice. They often don’t know their rights, or what to do when they have a conflict with an employer.”
The need for greater understanding of worker rights was underscored in 2005 when the delivery company DHL fired workers from its Brewer office who were trying to organize a Teamsters local, says McKay. The workers were ultimately rehired, with back pay, after the region’s legislative delegation showed their support.
“The Democrats were there,” says McKay, “but so was [Rep.] Paul Davis and [Sen.] Richard Rosen,” both Republicans. Despite the positive outcome, McKay says surveys still show a majority of workers think they will lose their jobs if they attempt to organize. The number of Americans in labor unions fell to a 70-year low last year of 11.9%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, roughly equal to Maine’s 11.6% unionized worker rate.
While the board tries to take a low-key approach, it intends to increase public awareness when disputes occur. Its upcoming community forum will spotlight the stalemate between the union representing nurses at Eastern Maine Medical Center and hospital management. Nurses recently held a one-day walk-out to draw attention to their concerns about staffing ratios, what they see as inappropriate employee transfers and health insurance for retirees.
Says McKay, “When we spoke to nurses, some of them thought they couldn’t even talk about wages and benefits because of HIPAA,” the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which protects patient privacy. He assured them that the privacy applies only to patients, not negotiations with their employer.
The forum will be held April 16 at 6 p.m., at the Bangor Public Library, and will be open to the public and media.
McKay says timing of the launch of the Worker Rights Board of Eastern Maine was an attempt to call attention to another aspect of the slain civil rights leader’s mission. When Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tenn., he was there as part of an “economic justice” campaign for sanitation workers, who were trying to organize a union, says McKay. “All work has dignity,” King told the workers, including collecting garbage. “You are going beyond purely civil rights to questions of human rights.”
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