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Approximately 60 people, both speakers and spectators, gathered in the University of Maine’s Martin Luther King Jr. Plaza on Monday to show support for union workers.
The rally was one in a nationwide trend of assemblies coinciding with the anniversary of King’s assassination 43 years ago in Memphis, designed to bring attention to what is perceived as government opposition to organized labor.
Students and professors mingled with unionized workers to hear speeches at the “We Are One Rally for Human Dignity,” coordinated by the Eastern Maine Labor Council and Food AND Medicine.
The labor council is a collective group representing 36 unions and approximately 6,000 workers. Food AND Medicine, based in Brewer, strives to ensure “economic and social justice,” according to its mission statement.
Demonstrators denounced bills in the state legislature sponsored by Rep. David Burns, R-Whiting, and Sen. Debra Plowman, R-Hampden.
Burns’ bill, LD 1346, suggests the implementation of a “training wage” of $5.25 an hour for 180 days for workers under the age of 20. Maine state minimum wage is $7.50 an hour, 25 cents more than federal minimum wage.
Under Burns’ bill, young Mainers would be earning $2.25 less an hour than state minimum wage.
Plowman’s bill, LD 516, would increase the number of hours 16- and 17-year-olds could work weekly from 20 to 24 and would allow them to work until 11 p.m. Originally, the bill would have allowed them to work 32 hours a week.
“King talked about how we are all interrelated. What unifies us is more fundamental than what divides us,” said Doug Allen, professor of philosophy at UMaine. “Divided, we feel overwhelmed. We feel we have no power and we feel demoralized. When we come together in solidarity as we are in this rally then, in fact, we have a strong voice. It is said throughout the world that people united, in fact, can never be defeated.”
Emery Deabay, a member of the United Steelworkers union and an employee at the Verso Paper Bucksport Mill, attended the rally, signs in hand proclaiming a need to “Protect workers’ rights.”
“Like the signs say,” he said, motioning toward a cluster of signs with a common theme, “we need to stand as one in solidarity against greed and corruption to make sure [workers] are protected.”
Deabay has attended rallies in Augusta and Portland in the past to spread the same message. Peering through the crowd, he pointed out friends who had come from as far as Skowhegan and Baileyville. Deabay came to the Orono demonstration, he said, in order to honor King.
“He was shot and murdered years ago when he was standing up for workers,” he said. “We’re under attack again by corporations and CEOs that want to line their pockets with our money.”
Loren Snow, a former Maine Department of Transportation worker who has been retired since 2008, was handed the microphone and told the crowd his story.
“I gave them 28 years. I was on-call 24/7, 365 days a year,” he said.
Snow spoke of the strain the economy has put on income from his pension.
“I’m going to have to go back to work because I won’t get a check. I’ll get a bill,” he said.
Snow talked about the discrepancy between pay for private and public sector jobs, saying he earned 21.65 percent less with his job in the MDOT than he could have with a different job. He stayed in the public sector because of the promise of a pension.
“There’s a lot of state employees out here that are a lot worse off than I am. So, when they start telling how well-off state employees are when they retire, you should know the whole facts about it. We do the kind of work we do because we are proud serving the taxpayers. We take great pride in it,” he said. “Now all we’re asking for is for them to leave our retirement system alone.
“We don’t want to have to sign up for food stamps,” Snow continued.
Recent events, such as Wisconsin’s Democratic diaspora over labor issues, have brought labor issues to the forefront of national consciousness.
Gov. Paul LePage’s praise for Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and vocal support of a “right to work” law of Maine, under which he said workers could not be forced to join a labor union, also ignited tempers at Monday’s rally.
“There are many misconceptions about right-to-work laws, and the term itself is highly misleading and deliberately misleading,” said Bill Murphy, director of UMaine’s Bureau of Labor Education. “‘Right to work’ does not empower workers. It does not guarantee a job, equitable wages and decent working conditions, nor does it prevent against unfair firings and terminations.”
Murphy said unions’ collective bargaining rights have created a union security clause to ensure those things right-to-work laws cannot provide.
Later, he elaborated on what he perceived as the state of Maine’s labor climate.
“No health insurance, no pension, no days off, no sick leave — that’s what a lot of you are looking at because of what has happened with the American economy,” Murphy said. “There’s no statutory obligation for those benefits to be provided. The only reason why they even exist is because of labor unions and the fact that they exist at all in the unorganized work sector is because of the precedent unions set.”
Jim Snow, the Northeast regional director of the AFL / CIO, a national federation of labor organizations, was also a scheduled speaker at the rally.
“We’re here to defend the right of working people to defend themselves,” he said, earning murmurs of agreement from the audience.
“Our voices have been saying ‘no’ to their effort to make working people pay for the wreckage that Wall Street left behind — the foreclosures, the plant closings, the outsourcing, the budget cuts … after they plundered the United States’ economy and, in fact, the world economy,” Jim Snow said. “Our voices have been saying ‘no’ to the un-American idea that the law of economic jungles should always rule.
“Our voices are saying that in a Democratic society, 1 percent of the population should never have more wealth then the remaining 99 percent combined,” he said.
Jim Snow denounced right-to-work laws, asserting that “in short, they will mean more poverty” for Mainers.
“For almost all people in Maine, they’ll mean lower wages,” he said. “They’ll lead to more unsafe workplaces, more workplace injuries and fatalities. They’ll mean lower investment in education and they’ll mean fewer new small businesses.”
He finished his speech by citing LePage’s controversial removal of a mural from the Department of Labor building due to what he perceived as a one-sided history of labor relations in Maine.
“On January 17, in Waterville, [LePage] said in part, ‘The journey continues to make Dr. King’s dreams a reality.’ Well, Governor, you’re certainly right about that. But taking down that mural, which is a chronicle of the history of that very journey in Maine, was wrong,” Jim Snow said. “It was divisive and it clearly demonstrated how far he has to go to get back to the real task he has at hand, which is creating jobs for the citizens of this state.
“The black wall at the labor department is symbolic of how little he is doing in this regard,” he said.
He ended his speech by shouting the rally’s slogan of “We are one.” Crowd members latched on to his repetition of the slogan, which swelled into a chant.
The rally lasted approximately one hour. University of Maine Police Department Sgt. Bob Norman visited briefly to check on the crowd, but the demonstration remained civil and did not disrupt the daily flow of campus traffic. He said proper notice for the rally was given and all permits were obtained.
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