State Union Rolls Soaring

Susan Cover, Staff Writer, Kennebec Journal, December 16, 2007 AUGUSTA -- Helen Hanson of South China didn't want to join the Maine State Employees Association -- at first. As a direct care worker who helps consumers bathe, dress, and cook, she didn't think the state employees union would know how to help her. "I thought this particular union, MSEA, honestly, there's no way they can help us," she said. "Their issues are so different than ours." But she eventually changed her mind, and once they had their first contract in place in August, she started to see the difference. "When I got my pay that reflected the raise we got, I patted myself on the shoulder and said we did it," she said. Hanson, president of the direct care worker unit, is one of 450 employees of Home Care for Maine who voted this year to join the workers union. They represent a portion of more than 3,000 Maine workers who have voted within the last 14 months to join the union, making this the union's most active membership drive since it formed in 1943. At the national level, Maine is affiliated with the Service Employees International Union, which represents 1.9 million workers across the country, in Canada and in Puerto Rico. Maine's growth is part of a larger national effort to unionize workers, said MSEA Executive Director Tim Belcher. "Those victories make us, by one count, the fastest-growing local union in the SEIU and the SEIU is the fastest-growing union nationally," he said. The SEIU -- which focuses on workers in hospital systems, long-term care, property services and the public sector -- is one of the unions that has been effective nationally in organizing service sector workers and those who work in the health care industry, said Dan Cornfield, a labor union expert and professor at Vanderbilt University. "The particular health care sector, broadly defined, the sector that provides vital family services, is an important part of the future of the labor movement," he said. Cornfield said organized labor is still trying to recover from post World War II losses in the manufacturing industry, the traditional stronghold of labor unions. More aggressive modern unions are targeting low-paid workers and are shifting away from political activity, he said. "They are often low paid, they may lack health insurance, many of the workers are women and minorities who often feel the sense of being disadvantaged at a higher level than white men might," he said. For the MSEA, the growth comes during a 21/2 year period in which some state workers sued the union because of a provision added to the state workers contract in 2005. Known as the fair share provision, the contract required all state workers to join the union, or pay a portion of union dues, or face the prospect of being fired from their jobs. A state law passed earlier this year no longer allows the workers to be fired, but does give the state the power to automatically withdraw the nonmember union dues from state workers' paychecks. Just last week, an arbitrator ruled that the union did properly calculate nonmember dues, despite a challenge from about 80 state workers. Belcher said the arbitration and lawsuits filed in federal court, most of which are over, represent part of the past that he's already put behind him. Despite the anger from those who didn't want to be required to support the union, Belcher said many other workers are seeking union representation to help them with wages and benefits. "We have a situation where there's been an incredible increase in productivity, and in the past that's been passed on to workers and that's just not happening," he said. "Real wages are stagnant while productivity is up." Those who have voted to be represented by the union won't officially become members until they have contracts in place. As it is now, the union has 12,000 members, including retirees. When you add people who are awaiting contracts and those who are represented by the union but are not full union members, the number grows to more than 15,000. As the union moves forward, it will need to continue to grow beyond a state workers union if it wants to add members. Belcher said there were substantially more state workers represented by the union years ago, but that hiring freezes have eaten away at that core group. For Hanson, the power of union membership is evident not only in her paycheck, but in the halls of the Statehouse. She said while testifying on a bill wearing a purple union sticker, lawmakers took notice. "I thought, wow, this union does have influence with the Legislature," she said. "That helped, seeing the union in action."