State government workers union files complaint against Mills administration over bargaining dispute / by Evan Popp

_{^{A demonstration on the steps of the Blaine House in Augusta on Sept. 26 to protest the state employee wage gap. (Emma Davis/ Maine Morning Star)}}

_{Reposted from Maine Morning Star}

A union representing Maine government workers filed charges Wednesday alleging that the Mills administration has failed to bargain in good faith — the latest escalation in a long-running dispute over state worker wages.

The Maine Service Employees Association, which represents over 13,000 workers, filed the complaint against the state with the Maine Labor Relations Board.

In its filing, MSEA said the state has in recent years made multiple commitments to conduct a comprehensive review of government employee wage and classification systems. The state had previously conducted a market study of state employee wages in 2020, which found that such workers were paid 11% below market compared with other public sector employees and 15% below market compared with the private sector — a gap the union has long sought to address.

Ultimately, the Legislature passed a bill last year requiring the state to do a comprehensive review of classification and compensation systems, submit a report on the study by Jan 31, and begin bargaining in good faith with the union by that same date to close the pay gap.

The Maine Department of Administrative and Financial Affairs (DAFS) released its report Jan. 31. In a presentation, DAFS Commissioner Kirsten Figueroa said state worker wages have increased by at least 24% in less than five years, totaling the increases from the previous 16 years combined, and argued it was “time to set aside the phrase ‘pay gap.’”

However, in its complaint, MSEA alleged the DAFS study was not completed as required because it didn’t include an updated market pay study. The law passed last year by the Legislature calls for “a recalculation of the market salary report using current salary data” as part of the state’s comprehensive review.

Another part of the law calls for the state to submit a report on a market pay study by the end of September and every four years thereafter.

Since the market pay study was not part of the January review, MSEA said there is no evidence for the claim that the state has addressed the pay gap. In fact, some observers, such as James Myall of the Maine Center for Economic Policy believe the pay gap has grown because of increases in private sector wages.

MSEA also said DAFS’s January report was not comprehensive because it failed to adequately review the state worker classification system.

“We’re asking the Maine Labor Relations Board to order the Mills administration to follow state law and our contracts when it comes to completing and implementing the pay and classification study,” said Mark Brunton, president of the MSEA-SEIU Local 1989. “The administration has been dragging its feet for years on this study.”

In a statement, DAFS spokesperson Sharon Huntley said the MSEA complaint rests on “faulty legal claims and factual inaccuracies” and does not recognize the progress she argued has been made to address the pay gap and implement other compensation increases outside of base wage raises.

“The Mills administration is committed to ongoing improvement in compensation and benefits for our valued state of Maine workforce, while being mindful of our fiscal responsibility,” Huntley said. “Repeated, factually inaccurate claims do nothing to advance that goal but instead only serve to hamper our progress.”

The complaint against the state from MSEA comes after the union signed new two-year contracts with the administration in December.

As part of that deal, state executive branch workers received a 6% across the board boost in pay on Jan. 1 and will get a 3% increase in July. Furthermore, an additional pay level will be added in July that will provide another 4% boost for most workers who have reached the maximum wage allowed, and employees this month received $800 in lieu of retroactive pay.

A key part of the agreement for the union was also that it included a written agreement with the Mills administration “to complete, negotiate and implement a new classification and compensation plan in 2024,” Dean Staffieri, then-president of MSEA, said in December.

_{Evan Popp studied journalism at Ithaca College. He joins Maine Morning Star following three years at Maine Beacon writing about statewide politics. Before that, he worked for the Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper and interned at the Progressive magazine, ThinkProgress and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.}

Maine state employees union ratifies contract with pay increases / by Lana Cohen

_{^{Members of the Maine Service Employees Association, Local 1989 of the Service Employees International Union, hold a lunchtime rally during a Department of Financial Services employee appreciation event in Augusta on Sept. 12 | Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal}}

_{Reposted from the Lewiston Sun Journal}

_^(Updated)

More than 9,000 Maine government employees will receive pay raises, more time off and increased parental leave in the new year.

The Maine Service Employees Association, Local 1989 of the Service Employees International Union, ratified four contracts on Saturday. The agreement covers executive branch employees working in operations, maintenance and support services, administrative services, and professional-technical services and supervisory services.

Employees will receive a 6% pay increase beginning Jan. 1, an $800 payment in February in lieu of retroactive raises and an additional 3% pay bump starting in July.

The contracts also include a child care reimbursement of up to $2,000 for certain workers, increased mileage reimbursement and increased longevity pay after five years of employment.

State executive branch workers have been pushing for higher wages for months. They are paid, on average, 15% less than other public workers or their counterparts in the private sector, according to two studies cited by the union. Union members and leaders say that disparity has led to a significant number of vacancies in the state’s executive branch.

During the negotiations, which began after their previous contract expired on June 30, workers held multiple demonstrations, including a protest outside the Blaine House in September and a November event in which workers hand delivered over 1,100 letters to the governor asking for pay equivalent to their private sector counterparts.

MSEA’s push for higher wages intensified as the state announced its projected $265 million budget surplus for the current biennial budget and its $257 million budget surplus for the following two years.

“The state has no excuse for failing to pay market-rate wages to the state workers,” Morgan Dunton, a member of the union’s negotiating team, said in Nov. 29 statement about the negotiations.

Under the contracts in effect now, pay for unionized state executive branch employees starts at $15 an hour. Maximum pay varies greatly between departments, from a maximum of $30 an hour, or $62,338 per year, for administrative employees to $39.38 an hour, or $82,000 per year, for professional or technical workers. Pay depends on the specific role and the employee’s longevity.

For a customer rep associate, for example, the minimum pay is $15 an hour. Maximum pay, for someone who has worked eight years or more, is $21.93.

The minimum pay for a maintenance mechanic, a role that requires two years of experience, is $15 an hour and goes up to $18.56 an hour after eight years of work.

In a statement about the ratification, Dean Staffieri, president of MSEA, said he is encouraged that the contracts include a written agreement with the Mills administration to negotiate and implement a new job classification and compensation plan in 2024 to continue to address the pay gap.

Job classification and compensation negotiations will begin by Jan. 31.

The union negotiations team decided to hold the ratification vote this month because the Legislature’s funding authorization for the new contracts would have expired Dec. 31.

The state said the new contracts demonstrate its “commitment to providing competitive wages and benefits for state of Maine employees,” said Kirsten Figueroa, commissioner of the Maine Department of Administrative and Financial Services.

“We are now on track to increase wages by at least 23% since taking office while significantly improving benefits,” Figueroa said.

The MSEA’s contract agreements come as unions triumphed across the country in 2023. Autoworkers, Hollywood actors and writers, airline pilots and delivery drivers are just some of the workers who came together to fight for better pay and benefits, and a share of the wealth when the companies they work for are profitable.

In the first quarter of 2023, union workers who ratified new contracts received an average first-year pay raise of 7.8%, according to Bloomberg Law’s quarterly union wage data report. That is the highest average wage increase since 2008, Bloomberg Law said.

_{Lana Cohen covers education for the Portland Press Herald. She joins the Press Herald from VTDigger, where she covered Chittenden County, Vermont’s population center. Previously she was a Reporter for America fellow in Mendocino County, covering environmental news for a digital outlet and a public radio station.}

Workers made big gains this session, but some important policies were deferred / by Dan Neumann

_{^{A recent rally in support of Chipotle workers in Augusta | Maine Service Employees Association, SEIU Local 1989 via Facebook}}

_{Originally published in the Maine Beacon on July 20, 2023}

Topping the list of policies passed this session that will benefit working Mainers are a paid family and medical leave program, increased funding for child care and a tentative last-minute deal creating good-paying jobs in Maine’s budding offshore wind industry.

But labor leaders and economists say other much-needed policies were also left on the table this year, including measures to finally raise the state minimum wage to $15 and repair the hole in the state pension system created over a decade ago.

“I think paid family leave is definitely one of the biggest wins for workers and it will make a huge difference for many people,” said James Myall, a policy analyst for the Maine Center for Economic Policy.

Policies that will lift up working families

_{^{Supporters hold a press conference before the May 25 public hearing on a proposal to create a paid family medical leave policy. | Beacon}}

Gov. Janet Mills approved a statewide paid family and medical leave program when she signed a two-year budget earlier this month. The budget included start-up funding for the program which will allow most workers to take up to 12 weeks of medical leave and family leave in a year while receiving a wage supplement to keep them financially afloat.

The new paid leave law combined with the $60 million set aside in the budget for improving access to child care for low-income families and improving wages for child care providers will be transformative for many working families with young children, said Jeff McCabe of the Maine Service Employees Association.

“It’s going to be life changing for many folks,” he said.

The significant funding comes after early childhood educators testified before lawmakers earlier this year, sounding the alarm that low pay is driving people out of a field that the economy depends on to allow parents to work.

Another farmworkers veto

Another priority this session was a bill to classify farmworkers as employees under some of the state’s wage and worker protection laws. But Mills on Wednesday vetoed the legislation that would have made farmworkers eligible to earn the state minimum wage. It is the second time the governor has vetoed protections for farmworkers. In 2022, she vetoed another bill that would have expanded collective bargaining rights to agricultural workers.

“This veto carries on the historical stain and stench of exploitation and racial exclusion,” the Maine AFL-CIO tweeted after the veto.

The stain is that farmworkers and domestic workers — predominantly people of color — were deliberately cut out of the labor laws passed in the 1930s as part of the New Deal.

A Green New Deal

While Mills thwarted the attempt to rectify the racial exclusions of the New Deal, workers in Maine did move closer to accomplishing some of the goals of the proposed Green New Deal, a massive mobilization plan that would put millions of Americans to work in good-paying, union jobs in the green energy sector.

Last week, days before the session officially concludes, Mills and labor unions struck a tentative deal to add strong labor and equity standards to a sweeping bill that will shape the buildout of Maine’s budding offshore wind industry. The deal came after Mills vetoed a similar wind energy bill in June that included provisions to create good-paying construction jobs in the industry.

“The resulting compromise is great news for working people in Maine, and for our collective fight against the climate crisis,” said Mike Williams, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress focusing on climate, energy and labor policy.

“It’s a good compromise and it would not have happened were it not for the dogged efforts by Maine’s labor and environmental movements, along with the Governor and legislative champions to negotiate in earnest,” he added. “The national movement to deploy massive amounts of gigawatts of offshore wind power is stronger because of the work of all the folks involved.”

Worker rights tabled or left unfunded

_{^{Workers with the national Fight for $15 movement. | Scott Olson, Getty}}

While the higher labor standards were cause to celebrate, worker rights advocates also feel there were many missed opportunities this year.

Several policies were tabled until next year, including a bill backed by the state’s largest nurses’ union that would address unsafe staffing levels at Maine hospitals, as well as a bill that would make thousands of more workers eligible for overtime pay when they work over 40 hours.

Since the 1970s, the number of salaried workers who automatically qualify for overtime pay has steadily fallen, plummeting from 66% of workers then to just 13% in Maine currently.

Multiple attempts to expand overtime protections have failed in recent years. Myall believes this is because state lawmakers anticipate that the Biden administration will change the overtime rules at the federal level, but he warns that the same was expected under former President Barack Obama, whose proposed changes were halted by the Trump administration.

“It means another year where these priorities will be put off and delayed,” Myall said. “I do think we need to see the state take action on this, regardless of what might happen at the federal level.”

On top of the priority bills that didn’t get a vote this year, there were also many workforce policies that did pass, but didn’t get funded by the legislature’s budget-making committee and therefore won’t go into effect.

Many of them were given relatively small fiscal-impact assessments for the administrative costs their implementation would require. Still, they were not selected by lawmakers for funding off of the legislature’s special appropriations table.

Among those left unfunded is a bill that would increase the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour next year, a bill requiring a worker be paid if they report for a shift that is canceled, a bill preventing workers from having to pay for some job training, a bill protecting workers from employer surveillance, a bill allowing employees to request flexible work schedules, and a bill requiring employers to disclose pay ranges and maintain records of employees’ pay history.

All the bills will need to be funded in next year’s supplemental budget or they will die.

“I think, on one level, it was heartening to see the legislature very supportive of these additional rights and protections for workers. It’s more momentum than was seen in previous years,” Myall said. “But, obviously, we’re still falling short in terms of getting some of these things prioritized enough that they are being funded.”

One-time boost for retirees

Several bills that proposed long-term fixes to Maine’s retirement system for state workers and teachers were also not funded off the special appropriations table. However, the budget did include $19.8 million for a one-time 3% cost-of-living adjustment for state retirees.

In 2011, former Gov. Paul LePage and the Republican majority made significant cuts to the public employee pensions to pay for income-tax breaks mostly benefiting the wealthy and corporations. Today, the cuts are still pushing more retirees closer to poverty as Maine’s retirement system is failing to keep up with the cost of inflation.

While the one-time COLA adjustment was welcome, it still doesn’t completely repair the damage that was done, McCabe said.

McCabe and Myall both said that Mills and Democrats’ refusal to reverse LePage’s legacy by taxing the wealthy will continue to lead to a situation where many bills that pass the legislature will not get funded, as they are forced to compete with other priorities.

“We are still continuing to try to claw our way back from the pension cuts of 2011,” McCabe said. “We haven’t seen an overall repeal [of the LePage cuts]. There have only been some small steps.”

_{Dan Neumann studied journalism at Colorado State University before beginning his career as a community newspaper reporter in Denver. He reported on the Global North’s interventions in Africa, including documentaries on climate change, international asylum policy and U.S. militarization on the continent before returning to his home state of Illinois to teach community journalism on Chicago’s West Side. He now lives in Portland. Dan can be reached at dan@mainebeacon.com.}