 |
| Maine Gov. Paul LePage |
Here’s the latest chapter in a story
Tasty covered in an earlier
post.
Remember when an SEIU union in
Maine voluntarily agreed to eliminate “agency fees” requirements from its labor
contract during negotiations with right-wing Gov. Paul LePage?
This provision required state employees
who chose not to join the union to instead pay a fee to help cover the costs of
the union’s collective bargaining and representation services that benefit
them. These cost-sharing fees are called “agency fees.”
What did SEIU Local 1989 (aka Maine
State Employees Union) get in exchange for giving up the “agency fees”
requirement?
Two annual pay increases of only 3%
per year for its members (roughly 9,000 state workers).
What’s happened since then?
Four months after inking this horrible
deal, the president of SEIU Local 1989 told the Portland Press Herald that “it is losing 'hundreds of thousands of
dollars' under the new provision.” (Betty Adams, “Public-sector
union sheds jobs after contract drops mandatory dues,” Portland Press Herald, January 9, 2018.)
Here’s an excerpt from the article:
Ramona Welton, president of the MSEA, Local 1989 of the Service Employees International Union, as well as a unit member, did not have the exact amount of the drop in income but estimated it was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“It’s a big number,” she said Tuesday, adding that the loss directly affects the local unit itself and indirectly affects its affiliate organizations.
How much financial support does the
union stand to lose?
In 2016, more than a quarter of Local
1989’s possible members opted to be agency fee-payers, according to figures
from the US Department of Labor.
Due to Local
1989's bad deal, these 2,500 workers and others can now stop making
any financial contributions whatsoever to the union... even though the union and all of its stewards are still required to represent them and bargain for them.
This is the scheme that right-wing
governors and Republican-appointed judges are trying to impose on workers
across the nation. Their goal is to weaken unions so they can drive down workers’
wages, benefits, and working conditions... and boost corporate profits.
Who would have thought that an SEIU union would help them with their plan?
