Maine Owl

Food AND Medicine held media event in Brewer Saturday morning


U.S. Representative Mike Michaud holds his copy of "Where Are They Now?" Saturday in Brewer; please click above for an excellent teevee news story from Ch. 2 (Flash video)

Please click below to download the report: Where Are They Now?

PDF, about 1.5 MB

The report "tells the stories of 107 workers who lost jobs over this eight-year period, 96 of whom worked in the wood products industry. These workers have three major experiences in common: life working in a union in Maine, the devastation of a layoff, and the challenges of working non-union and not always receiving a fair wage. Together, their stories reveal much about jobs, about our government policies, and about who benefits and who is hurt by our economy at the personal, community, and macroeconomic levels." (from p. 7)

Mike Michaud also made a little news (not mentioned in the teevee story) when he said his opinion was that the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) could not pass in the U.S. Senate this year, as currently written. Also, and I'm paraphrasing, Mike does not feel like President Obama will spend any "political capital" to help EFCA pass. But Mike will be in a meeting with the President early next week. We urged him to press Obama on the issue.

Get your Solidarity News everywhere now


Published by Food AND Medicine: The current issue (Spring 2009) contains a large special section on the EMPLOYEE FREE CHOICE ACT (EFCA)

A pro-EFCA rally was held Wednesday at the Worker Center in Brewer. The Bangor Daily News ran a "balanced" story yesterday:

A group of about 20 held a rally Wednesday morning at Food AND Medicine in Brewer, an organization that formed in 2002 to assist laid-off workers with food, medicine and other necessities. Jack McKay, director of Food AND Medicine and the Eastern Maine Labor Council, called the event a success if for no other reason than it keeps the debate going.

"We're committed to workers' rights, and we think this idea has significant support in Washington," he said.

Supporters claim that the EFCA would, among other things, allow workers to choose a union without fear of employer coercion or intimidation. U.S. Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., and U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, introduced the bill this week as a means to make it easier for workers to bargain with their employers for better wages and health care. If passed, the law would make the most substantive changes to U.S. labor laws since 1935.

That last paragraph could have been written a lot better. Supporters don't just "claim" the Act would do things to help labor organizing, it would do such things, including force employers to bargain in good faith.

EFCA not just about "secret ballot"
A succinct explanation of how this revision of labor law would help the economy was offered by former Labor Secretary Robert Reich on the public radio Marketplace program this week:

Reich: ... employees who want to form unions are threatened by their employers. And if they don't heed the warnings, they're fired, even though that's illegal. I saw this behavior when I was secretary of Labor over a decade ago. We tried to penalize employers that broke the law, but the fines are minuscule. Too many employers consider them a cost of doing business. The most important feature of the Employee Free Choice Act toughens penalties against companies that violate their workers' rights.

Judging by comments under the BDN story above, I'm afraid to say that there are a lot of people running around out there with deep misconceptions about unions, no understanding of barriers to organizing in law that mercilessly are used by management against them, and the actual content of EFCA itself. There is a lot of work left to do by Labor if we want to generate enough pressure to get EFCA passed.

See also FMI: Turn Maine Blue has many excellent items on EFCA.

It was bound to happen


Jack McKay and Steve Husson of Food AND Medicine warn against FairPoint in September 2007

The clip above reminds us that strong warnings were issued by labor leaders prior to the tax-avoidance-inspired* sale to FairPoint by Verizon of northern New England's land-line telephone system. The issue was that FairPoint would struggle to accomplish system modernization and extension of broadband to electronic deserts in rural areas while trying to service an enormous $2 billion debt load.

A major crack has appeared in the apparent ability of FairPoint to live up to its obligations and promises. According to an Associated Press story in the Bangor Daily News today, FairPoint wants to "delay a scheduled $11.25 million debt payment" due this month until June.

My question is, is FairPoint's "pledge" to resume regular payments after things "stabilize" in the summer worth anything given that it wants to break its promise to make this payment? Obviously, there is trouble with the post-sale stability of the company. Will FairPoint be able to keep its promises? The alternative? Is another public bailout on the horizon? Only time will tell.

Update: Another AP story in the Friday BDN points out that FairPoint has been shedding customers like fur off a collie, and has what fairly recently was a stock price of $11 now is worth "between 38 and 42 cents a share," to an insider (according to an SEC filing). The switchover from Verizon turned into a boondoggle. This was a very stupid idea from the get-go.

Update 2: Jeff Inglis at The Phoenix has more in a piece this week:

The company has asked regulators in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont for permission to miss a March 31 $11.25 million quarterly payment to creditors, saying that while the states' public-utilities commissions had required the payment as a condition of the Verizon purchase, FairPoint's actual lenders don't require any money until the end of June.

"FairPoint is essentially reneging on the agreement," says Wayne Jortner, senior counsel in Maine's Office of the Maine Public Advocate, a state agency charged with defending customers' interests in utilities regulation.

The company is promising to make up the payment by the end of the year, to meet its state-mandated obligation of paying $45 million annually to reduce the heavily leveraged company's debt load. And Jeff Nevins, FairPoint's Maine spokesman, says the request will allow "more financial flexibility." But that flexibility may not help it keep that promise, based on the company's March 4 filing with federal securities regulators.

Thanks, Jeff. Please stay on this.

*For some explanation of the "Reverse Morris Trust," see the Maine Owl post HERE. (Vermont relented and allowed the sale to proceed in early 2008.)