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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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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.
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