Employee Free Choice Act Symposium with Barbara Ehrenreich Draws Crowd

Watch a video excerpt of the event!

In what one attendee described as "the most well-attended event on a labor issue at the University in 30 years," hundreds packed an auditorium in the University of Maine's D.P. Corbett Business Center to learn about the state of worker rights and union organizing in our country, and the urgent need for change.

This "Symposium on the Employee Free Choice Act," organized jointly by the Eastern Maine Labor Council, Food AND Medicine, UMaine's Student Labor Action Project, the Bureau of Labor Education, and the Maine Christian Association and co-sponsored by 18 other student & community organizations and small businesses, brought Barbara Ehrenreich, noted author of Nickel & Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America, to speak alongside Maine workers about the lack of democracy and basic rights in non-union workplaces. EMLC members Linda Morris and Steve Husson shared stories of organizing campaigns they helped lead with MSEA-SEIU and Teamsters 340, respectively. Both encountered draconian and often illegal opposition from their employers in these efforts to make the workplace better. Barbara Eherenreich, who took low-wage, non-union jobs all across the US in her hands-on research for Nickel & Dimed, then urged the audience to get involved in the fight for worker rights.

One major note that emerged from the program is that it is time to clearly and in large numbers let Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins know that the workers of Maine want the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) to pass in order to level the playing field for workers.

Read Bangor Daily News coverage of event

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Opposition to Employee Free Choice Gets Hysterical

One of our members came upon this article about a private conference of CEOs and Corporate Lobbyists, trying to stir up opposition to EFCA. Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus, perhaps the most power-mad of the bunch, called Employee Free Chice "the demise of a civilization," and said of his colleagues "If a retailer has not gotten involved in this, if he (sic) has not spent money on this election, they should be shot." These statements are shocking and revealing. They wouldn't be going to such great lengths if they didn't think workers have a real chance of winning this.

Here in Eastern Maine, several area business leaders met at the White House Inn for a Feb. 18 press conference slamming the Employee Free Choice Act. Our allies at Food AND Medicine were able to get a word in, however. Read the Bangor Daily News coverage here.

Learn More About the Employee Free Choice Act

Learn More About What We are Doing to Win

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Eastern Maine Religious Leaders and Farmers Support Employee Free Choice

Thanks to the work of numerous Eastern Maine Labor Council and Food AND Medicine members, ten religious leaders and twenty-four farmers have signed letters to Sen. Olympia Snowe asking her to support the Employee Free Choice Act, showing it is not just a "union issue" but a fundamental human rights issue.

Read the Letter from Religious Leaders and the Letter from Maine Farmers

Read the list of faith leaders and farmers who've signed!

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Sixth Annual Solidarity Harvest Brings Locally-Produced Thanksgiving Meals to Laid Off Workers

Since 2003, EMLC and Food AND Medicine's Solidarity Harvest has brought quality Thanksgiving meals to over 3,300 laid off workers and their family mambers in Eastern Maine. In addition, the program brings unions, farmers, and small businesses together in solidarity to work toward long-term solutions that will build our local economy and keep jobs in Maine. As much as possible, we buy or accept donations of only fresh, local foods.

This year's program benefits 150 laid off workers and their families in:

• Ashland (Pinkham Sawmill)
• Millinocket (Katahdin Paper)
• Baileyville (Domtar Paper)
• Old Town (Red Shield)
• Brewer (DHL Delivery)

None of this would be possible without the help of many unions, farms, faith organizations, local businesses, laid off workers, and other volunteers who have and continue to donate money, time, and produce.

The EMLC extends tremendous thanks to all of the following unions and other organizations for their support and/or donations:

• Food AND Medicine
• IBEW 1837
• CWA 1400
• Machinists Local S6
• Central Maine Labor Council
• USW Local 9
• USW 1310
• USW 1188
• Firemen & Oilers Local 3
• Ofelia's Community Resource Center
• Unitarian Universalist Church of Bangor
• Unitarian Universalist Church of Castine
• Congregation Beth-El
• First Congregational Church of Brewer
• St. John's Episcopal Church, Bangor
• Bangor Hydro Electric Company

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Election 2008: Congratulations for Making Labor's Voice Heard

All of you who did the walks, phonebanked, and handed out leaflets helped educate and empower our members to stand up for what is right and for a better country for all Americans. Thanks for doing your part.

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Unions, the Private Ballot
and the Big Lie Campaign

Recently an out of state, anti-union outfit has been flooding our media with ads saying that unions want to take away the private ballot for workers. Senators Susan Collins and John McCain have been aping the same language. This is the Big Lie Campaign.

Unions have private ballot elections all the time! We vote on contracts, for officers, for negotiating committees etc. Non union workers never vote on work place issues or for representatives! Non union workers don't ever vote on pensions, healthcare, hiring packages, layoff procedures, job bid procedures, vacation schedules, etc. Through our union, we get to vote. That is what a union gives us!

The Employee Free Choice Act would aid non-union workers to get the ability to vote on meaningful things, like pay, healthcare, pensions, etc. It would increase the number and times that workers use the private ballot. The businesses and their shamelessly named groups (Union Facts, Coalition for Workplace Democracy) are all about workers voting less - or, they hope, not at all.

On Wednesday, August 27 and again on Labor Day, the EMLC held press conferences to get this truth out to the media. We got great coverage on Maine Public Radio, in the Bangor Daily News, and on Channels 2 and 7.

The Eastern Maine Labor Council is also releasing a study detailing extensive private ballot voting by union members affiliated to the EMLC in just the past year. The EMLC surveyed 26 affiliated locals and found that 221 workers were elected to office by private ballot, including 13 presidents, 13 vice-presidents, 12 secretaries and 7 treasurers, 55 members of executive boards and an additional 121 other officers in various capacities. In addition private ballot votes on 22 contracts or workplace issues were taken. These numbers do not take into consideration the fact that many locals operate on a three year election cycle and that contracts generally run for three years. If such a vote was in an off year, it is not included in the tallies. View the report, "Truth and Falsehoods," here for more details.

Read more about the Employee Free Choice Act and those deceptive anti-union "private ballot" ads

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Solidarity Scholarships awarded to three Eastern Maine students

Pete Janarelli, Jessie Mellott, and Michael Scott Lowell just became the first recipients of the Eastern Maine Labor Council and Food AND Medicine's Solidarity Scholarship. The scholarships are awarded annually to eligible students who send a brief essay about a personal experience of solidarity, and how they plan to use their education to bring more solidarity into the world. All EMLC members and their families, FAM members and their families, and laid-off workers in Eastern Maine and their families are eligible.

Pete Janerelli is a FAM member and volunteer, Micheal Scott Lowell is the son of an MSEA-SEIU member, and Jessie Mellott is the daughter of a member of MSNA and plans to join that union herself. All three are students at the University of Maine, Orono.

Check back for info about next year's Solidarity Scholarship.

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Worker Center hotline running-1-866-933-WCEM

Nonunion workers finally have somewhere to turn for help with problems on the job, at the new Worker Center of Eastern Maine (WCEM) Hotline.

All calls are completely confidential and will be returned by one of the Worker Center's trained Community Stewards within a few days.