Ok so we have a hard enough time keeping jobs in maine during a good economy. Now that we are in a crappy economy we should unionize and that will not make anything better. The reason the Big Auto companys are in the problem they are is because of over demanding unions. I could see if people were getting low wages and working in poor conditions, but niethor is happening. The old GP mill will never become anything because of a union that hasnt been dissolved. The average pay at the GP mill during there run was over 100K. Yet when these union people that make that money lose their jobs, we the low income taxpayers are the ones that have to help out. If I lose my job no one but myself or family is going to help me out. Yet a mill closes down and people bend over backwards for these people. I understand that it sucks to lose your job, but what makes them better then the rest of us. Because they are part of a union, no. I think as long as you have people that care about their employees, it will all work out in the end. Hopefully we start getting more jobs in this state. Once that happens and we getting the majority of people off wellfare then we can start talking unions. If not before we know it the welfare people will unionize and run everything.

Would the BDN find it worth mentioning that the Center for American Progress is a fringe leftist wacko organization? They make it appear like it's a legitimate study/survey group. No bias in the media, right?

It`s funny when they tried to unionize us they went to the table and came back with nothing but peenies of a raise and no health ins. or any other benefits. So we rejected the contract. And the union said take or we are out of here, Good-bye and have a nice day. The union was going to be forced upon us with a bunch of empty promises. You will get raises, paid health care, paid hoildays and vaction, you name it as long as you signed their list intent cards (which I refused)

With the way the economy is now and businesses not wanting to come to Maine why would Maine reps support somthing like this.

The state reps who support this have lost my vote and will make sure others know why

Hopefully our senators will do the right thing and redeam themselves

Maybve there was too much union money handed out last election

I could live with a union coming in as long as the employees have a choice to join or not meaning an open shop.

And I`ve heard the saying--- why should non-union employees benefit from a union contract

Well they wouldn`t

I can negotiste with an employer on my own behalf witout having it cost me $40 in dues

If there wasn`t money in unions then they wouldn`t exist. These unions are making fist full of money of the hard working americans

And what did the unions do when all the mills were closed up. Did they re-educate them, No they turned their backs on them and tax dollars had to take care of them

Big labor is big business. They have paid for many of our leaders in congress. Time for pay back with thier support of Employee Free Cohercion Act. I expect better from Mike Michaud.

I could see if people are getting low wages....people that care about employees...negotiate with an employer....did they re-educate them (does any employer re-educate you when they send you down the road) ..what kind of fantasy world do you live in...

Unions are not a good idea look what they did to the

BIG THREE.

This is a sickening piece of reverse logic. The high costs of unionized labor force companies out of busines, period. Unionized labor is the biggest reason manufacturing had to be outsourced abroad, leaving in its wake the loss of millions of jobs. At a local level, all one has to do is drive thru Millinocket or Rumford to see the effects of unionized labor. The blight, despair & poverty is a depressing reminder of how 'great' unionized labor is. More unionized labor in Maine = less employers & higher unemployment. I'm no Accountant but I figure higher unemployment & fewer jobs translates to a shrinking economy. Wake up Mike, you of all people should know better given your background!

Look at what the BIG THREE did to themselves by making vehicles the average person cannot afford to drive? When they make a good m,odel, they should keep it for awhile and have interchangable parts like the "older" VWs. We don't need different shaped tail-lights every new model-year.

Go ahead crap all you want on Unions. I for one am glad I have one. I have a pension, I have employer provided health, dental and life insurance, a forty hour workweek, have weekends off, paid holidays, vacation and sick leave and I'm not on welfare folks. My mortgage on my home is paid, I'm not on devault on my credit cards. Like I said say all you want about Unions. Try it you'll like it.

This is an editorial, why was it placed in the news section?

This article reads like a paid political advertisement....

Who is the "Center for American Progress "

As a former mill worker, who would you expect Mike Michaud to support?

Looking at the declining union membership, no wonder they are trying to change the rules...

Great idea if we were back in 1900..unions have out lived their usefulness...I know this has been repeated above but take a look at the paper industry in this state..when was the last time the papermakers unions have added to their ranks...the unions create a "two-headed" monster that protect the lazy and comp cases...wake up, unions are not the solution to any company in Maine

Mike Michaud does NOT CARE! He made big bucks in the paper mill up north for 20+ years & NOW he is making BIG BUCKS AGAIN in Washington He is being backed by big time lobbist who are PRO UNION!! Do the Math!!! Maine doesn't need Unions to come in and wipe out the remaining employers that we have. This is a serious matter and people need to pay attention to this act.

Union=MAFIA

Don't feed the troll!

Unions are the problem, not the solution

Are these people who support unions insane??? Unions are the most prevalent form of socialism, other than the DNC, in this country. Unions use the most productive worker to support the least productive workers. I have witnessed many people who are so inept that they could hardly function in society. But because they belong to a union, they have the protection of collective bargaining, and keep the high preforming workers from excelling. The best examples of the harm that unions due to companies are the American auto companies. The union worker’s compensation, when all factors are figured in, is about $150/hour.....That is almost the average hourly charge of a lawyer.....

Don't spew about how unions are responsible for the 40 hour work week, and weekends off, vacation pay, etc.etc.etc. I know because I have been self employed, or on a salary job, that REAL productive workers are responsible for efficient labors to make the company succeed.

I don't know of any corporation that has unions, that is doing well at this period of history. The largest union in the world is the Government worker’s union....who always supports Dummycrats....Interesting if you have the intelligence to connect the dots...

"Center for American Progress" Its President and Chief Executive Officer is former lobbyist John Podesta, who served as chief of staff to then U.S. President Bill Clinton. ....

The fact of the matter is that the Employee Free Choice Act would be a tremendous spur to the Maine and the national economy. It is straightforward legislation that would allow employees who choose to unionize to do so without harassment or intimidation. It would allow for mediation and arbitration if the employer drags their feet on contract negotiations (which happens far more often than you might think). Lastly, it would impose stiff penalties for Corporations that engage in illegal acts to keep their employees from unionizing.

This would put all of us workers on a more level footing with our employers. It's time that we stop getting pushed around!

"Since 1983, the portion of Maine workers who are members of a union has declined from 24 percent to roughly 15 percent....."

Do a little math and that means in the last 26 years or so union membership has declined by 9%.

Waht is the percentage of UNION JOBS THAT HAVE BEEN LOST over the same period of time?

My guess, with all of the job losses in the shipyards, shoe industry, paper industry, military base closures due to BRACs and all the other unionized industries and businesses in Maine that have closed their doors or moved to a more business friendly state, is that much more than 9% of union jobs have been lost.

OK, just for one, add in the casinos and their union employees.

Let's see: If more than 9% of union jobs have been lost and union membership has only declined by 9% over the same period of time just what merit does this article have???

I have been a summer resident of Maine for 36 years and a property owner in Washington County for 25 years. If Mike Michaud and others like him think they can keep business in or attract business to Maine by getting people to organize labor unions they are a few tires short of saving a roof on a trailer.

The steel, auto and toolmaking industries are perfect examples of what labor unions can do to companies. You wonder why so many jobs have gone outside the US? Do you think unionized shops might have had anyting to do with it?

We have just had 8 year of business being allowed to do as it pleased, and it doesn't appear to me that it has worked very well. If employees have no representation they have to accept what the company decides to give them, which is usually the least they can get away with. During negotiations unions can't force the company to agree to anything; if the parties can't agree, they go to mediation and, if necessary, that third party will decide the terms of the contract. This idea that unions control the process is wrong; if they could do that, union membership would be a lot higher than it is.

My God, does everyone reading the BDN worship at the alter of Saint Limbaugh? Most of America is exhausted with the constant harping of the far right wing over the impending doom of socialism cast by every attempt to improve the lives of workers.

The decline in union membership from the 35% high in the 1950's to where it is now, is substantially the same decline suffered by manufacturing, both union and non union. The Limbaugh constructed straw-man here is that without unions these jobs would have been saved. The truth is: In a free trade environment they would have been saved if Maine workers could manage on 10 bucks a day.

Unions can be blamed for not expanding their vision. My hero in this is Henry Ford (as anti-union a thug as ever lived). He realized that he could expand his market only if he lifted his workers out of poverty - and started paying them enough "so they could afford to buy a Model T". The villain here is Sam Walton. He built his empire on suppressing wages and benefits, shifting the cost of health care for his "associates" onto the government and then dodging every tax while he destroyed the fabric of nearly every rural town in America.

Unions are needed because workers need power. They need democratic (note the small "d") unions that welcome their voices and their dues. Workers in retail, health care, building services need unions because without them they are powerless. This is not a "socialist conspiracy". We won the right to free association nearly a hundred years ago. We lost the right to decide if we wanted a union without management interference back in the 70's.

With Majority Free Choice we will win it back.

GO Bangor High!

More Pro-union propganda....This report is a joke but expected..

No...grunkom...we don't worship at teh alter of Rush Limbaugh.....just the alter of common sense......

to summarize your comments....."With Majority Free Choice we will win it back"....and the companies will continue to leave the state and the country in order to provide their shareholders a better return on THEIR investment...

Because after all...this is a global economy...not a protectionist economy that contributed to the rise of the unions...

I TRIED TO WARN YOU THAT THE STATE OF MAINE DID NOT NEED TO RE-ELECT MICHAUD BECAUSE OF THINGS LIKE THIS. ANY REPUBLICAN OR INDEPENDENT BUSINESSMAN WOULD BE A BETTER CHOICE.

President Obama's National Economic Council chair and former Clinton Treasury Secretary Larry Summers has this to say about unionization, in a piece about unemployment:

"Another cause of long-term unemployment is unionization. High union wages that exceed the competitive market rate are likely to cause job losses in the unionized sector of the economy. Also, those who lose high-wage union jobs are often reluctant to accept alternative low-wage employment. Between 1970 and 1985, for example, a state with a 20 percent unionization rate, approximately the average for the fifty states and the District of Columbia, experienced an unemployment rate that was 1.2 percentage points higher than that of a hypothetical state that had no unions."

http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Unemployment.html

Let's see.

The Big Three auto companies unionized, their costs skyrocketed, non-union companies now make cars for less here in the U.S. (the workers still get a good wage), and now the Big Three are going bankrupt. This is how unions are supposed to be good for the economy?

In the 1960's the National Education Association (NEA) became unionized (before that it was considered a professional organization). Since then, education costs have skyrocketed, while the U.S. world ranking in education has steadily declined. This is how unions are supposed to be good for us?

In 1977, airlines were unionized. Since then, practically every major airline has gone bankrupt due to skyrocketing costs. Is there a recurring theme here?

Unions were good when workers worked in unsafe conditions, earned extremely low pay, and had little or no legal protection on the job. Now unions are greedy, self-serving and a drag on the economy. They demand so much from companies (and taxpayers in the case of the NEA) that whole sectors of the economy have become non-competitive and failed (auto, textiles, steel, electronics, the list goes on).

Here's the bottom line. Maine desperately needs to attact new businesses and jobs. If you think giving unions more power is going to improve Maine's economy, you're nuts.

Maybe so, but I think we should hold off a little longer in order to make sure that we've squeezed out the maximum benefit from drugs and alcohol use in the workplace first, and after we've done that, bring on the unions. Icing on the cake!:)

The Center for American Progress study is based on faulty information. In 1983, union membership was 21 percent of Maine's workforce, not 24 percent. More importantly it was just 14.2 percent of the workforce on private payrolls. By 2008 it had declined to 12.3 percent of the total workforce and 5.5 percent on private payrolls. If you use faulty information you will reach faulty conclusions. The crying need isn't for higher pay but for more jobs. It is a rule of economics that the more something costs the less people can buy of it. This is just as true of labor as it is of fuel and food. Union activity, by pricing workers out of the market, decreases employment opportunities. Increasing unionism as the unions propose in the perversely named "Employee Free Choice Act" by denying workers the right to a secret ballot election on union representation, would have a very negative impact on the economy.

ryan22857: I too have all those benifits without the union dues and I work for a private company. Imagine that?

Apparently a lot of Mainers and a part time resident want us to lower our standard of living to the level of the Viet Namese. Union decline has been accompanied by the decline of the middle class. People now are less likely to be able afford insurance or a pension. Back in the 50's and 60's one working person could support a family and if a spouse worked it was extra money. Now it takes two just to scrape by. Those people screaming socialism, don't really know what socialism is. By your definition a mutual fund is socialism.Socialism is a means to an end where the government controls all capitol. This system is not being presented by unions or the DNC or anybody I know of. Pure socialism results in a squeeze on innovation and will eventually lead to a flat economy. Pure capitalism runs over people who are less educated, disabled, old, or just don't "fit the mold". It leads to economic booms and busts and a ruling elite of the rich and their offspring and eventual feudalism.It is best to mix the two, sometimes more capitalism and sometimes more socialism. The conservative element doesn't seem to realize yet that their time has passed for now and their prolonged attempt at pure capitalism has busted the economy. You read the business news. You failed.

Unions are a worker's legal right and if there is a majority then they should have their union. They should not have pressure put on them by management. It is their organization. Management uses contracts- why not workers? By the way mill workers make about $50,000 not $100,000. And the big three are losing because management has made really bad designs for the workers to make. I mean..... the Hummer. Geez!

"Unions are a worker's legal right and if there is a majority then they should have their union."

And what's wrong with the secret ballot for making that choice, exactly?

I think in all of the gut check reacting to this issue everyone is missing the point. The Employee FREE Choice act simply makes it so that workers have the choice to unionize, which they are supposed to have under 1935's labor relations act. Unfortunately to many big corporations simply ignore the Labor relation act and intimidate, abuse, ridicule and fire workers who express interest in forming a union, even though this is illegal. They do this because 1: They want to keep every cent that their labor force generates for them, and 2: even though it is illegal, the government does absolutely nothing about it. The Employee free choice act would simply make it so that corporations could not commit these illegal acts against their workers any longer. It is about Choice, not about creating unions. We here in Maine pride hard, honest work above most other things. Why then do we want to continue to allow huge (very rich) corporations to exploit their work forces and turn their hard work into absolutely unlivable wages, and unacceptable benefits? All of these people who are foaming at the mouth about how unions destroy businesses are missing a couple of very important points. That this information they are quoting is coming directly from the owners and managers of these large corporations (The Employee free Choice Act does not apply to small businesses)who are telling you this to try to keep YOU from benefiting from your hard work, and that you hold very dear your freedom to not join a union, so why would you try to deny me my freedom to choose the opposite if I want. Isn't that what this country is about? Freedom? Then why are so many people so upset about this legislation that would give American Workers the FREEDOM TO CHOOSE? Think about it long and hard before you just parrot what your boss has told you about the issue and you try to take away the workers freedoms.

Briand-The Employee Free Choice Act does not take away the secret ballot. The forces who are trying to continue to underpay their employees to pump their own salaries and bonuses are pushing this myth. It takes away the employers right to call for a secret ballot and places back into the hands of the workers as it should be. The workers can call for a secret ballot if they wish. This is how it was before Taft Hartley in 1947 when the Red Scare put fear into that republican congress that unions might go communist. Or they saw it as a way to break unions. Please do your homework.

"The Employee Free Choice Act does not take away the secret ballot."

I know that, and I never asserted otherwise. What I'm curious about is why it isn't sufficient. (And preferable.)

Union Leaders are out for #1.

Although Unions create a safety net of sorts for the good worker other than that they get you a 3% pay increase year to year and keep bad workers working. Oh and the with the 3% pay increase comes a increase in your Union dues, so what are you really getting and the sh!tty worker they keep on puts your life at risk and makes the 99% of the other workers miserable. The flip side of this is they get you too much and bankrupt your company.

sleevejob "Union decline has been accompanied by the decline of the middle class." You are in error.. most of the decline in the power of unions came during the early 80's through about 2000.This occured during the greatest expansion of middle class wealth in the history of the country.

grunkom, you are a moron. Sam Walton is the problem ? Oh my God !! You and the rest of the union idiots are exactly what has tanked our great country. Union members are lazy, corrupt, seditious, and self-absorbed. The bigger problem is that the union leaders are even worse. You should try listening to Rush as he makes a hell of a lot more sense than you do.

Hey sleevejob and choiceiskey, to the intelligent, hard working, ambitious, self-educated go the spoils. We are all dealt different hands in life and we live accordingly. Winners in life make up for lack of one or more of the aforementioned attributes by focusing on those God given gifts with which we are blessed. Unions take the lazy and corrupt and elevate them to the hard working and honest. Great way to reward performance ! Management exploits the workforce?! Stop taking to many gossip "union mandated breaks" around the coffee maker, get your a$$ to work, and stop whining about your poor state in life which is better than you probably deserve under your union contract.

Unions funnel dues from hard-working Americans to the Democrat Party.

Thank God for the Union where I work. We negotiated at length to get a starting wage of $11.83. We didn't have to negotiate too hard for the 3% increase as social security recipients were getting more, and the cost-of-living increase was also more than 3%. The increase we received from our employer for blue cross and blue shield was sufficient for an individual policy holder to be 100% covered, but for any one with children or spouses it still leaves quite a bit to come out of their bi-weekly checks. My union has prevented my employer from hiring any one they want to fill positions and gives the veterans of the organization the right to bid on openings first. My union has helped us when a supervisor is harassing a female supervisee because the supervisor doesn't like woman. Especially one female who has been out on workman's comp. My union has helped save a man's job when the supervisor said that the man swore on the clock but failed to mention that he, the supervisor, was quilty of the same thing! Our Union stepped in to insure that a bucket raised by a tractor to change a sign was hooked correctly and that all safety equipment was in place because they almost dumped an employee because they were not concerned about the employees safety. There would be no need for Unions if all employers treated everyone the same, but that is usually not the case. DO NOT make a comparison with Maine Unions and the automobile Unions. We do not make $28.00 per hour with another $28.00 benefit package per hour. We just want to make a living wage and be treated equally. Just for everyone's information, no one forced our employer to sign the contract with our Union. We both negotiated in good faith and both came to an agreement. It was a win-win. We do have non-union personnel. They currently have equal footing with the Union employees at no cost and no work on their part. I, for one, am looking forward to fairshare. I can guess from many comments here that there are a great many of you voicing your opinions but with no experience on both sides of the fence from which to draw your conclusions from.

Gardenlady, perhaps you should join the teamsters union in the company I worked for in Chicago. They shafted the employees of the company I worked for and most didnt even know it happened.

While some unions work hard to maintain a strong work ethic, the vast majority are now catering to the lazy and wasteful employees in order to get their political votes. It's really that simple, and the union bosses and their crooked politician friends are gaining the most benefit from this political machine that some people call "labor unions." It's time for the union members that are being used to wake-up and realize what's really happening to them.

Small business was the backbone of Maine we need to keep it that way

I'm in a union and i made $88,000 last year.How much did you whining losers make.unions have been good to me. Sit back and make minimum wage and hammer on unions every chance you get.Got to go catch a plane to florida to take a paid vacation.good by losers

By the way ,RUSH is a union member but he don't deserve it.

I sure am glad the RUSH fanatics and republicans have been reduced to just whining and don;t control anything anymore. republicans really messed up if thay got beat by a black man

Vichet, I work with several retired Teamsters and they just got notice in the mail that their retirements are safe and will be waiting for them. One tells me that the teamsters gave them $1,500.00 per year for things like eyeglasses, doctor's appointments etc. This is in the State of Maine. Your posting is real vague. Did you do more than just pay dues for the Teamsters? Did you participate in policy making and decisions? People who belong to Unions need to be active, asking questions, going to meetings, etc. Sounds like you just let others do all the work because changes are not made without people agreeing to them.

harryharly, I sure am glad too! People ignore the fact that it was unions that gave us all an 8-hour workday and a 40-hour work week. If unions didn't exist I don't think it would take more than a New York minute for employers to start requiring longer hours, no overtime, and no benefits.

... no sick days, no vacation days, no raises, no cost-of-living increases, unsafe working conditions, you name it. If employers could get away with it they would. Why do you think these things were demanded and hard-won? Not to mention all the government watchdog agencies inspired by unions that are tasked with making sure discrimination and unsafe working conditions don't run rampant in the workplace. Want to be a wage slave? Be a union-hater.

Nice racist comment, harryharly. Nice hypocrisy anne.

David, what is hypocritical about what I wrote?

gardenlady.... i was a shop teamster shop steward at a sheet metal shop in Chicago in the late 70s. The union reps came into our shop and talked the members into cashing out their pensions. I saw it. I was at the meetings. I recall one worker in his 50's overjoyed to think he was going to get to spend the $70,000 of his life savings. I told him taxes were going to come into play and reduce the amount but his response was that he couldnt wait to buy the pool table to put in his basement. I was younger at the time and even I could see how stupid it was. The union bosses were out for lining thier own pockets. It was THE defining moment for me about what unions were all about. I understand the motivations of companies. it all about making money. If you know that starting out most have the IQ points to deal with it. The motivations of unions are somewhat more duplicitous... they take your dues and make deals behind closed doors.

I,m non union and made more than that. Unions are no longer required. Sorry.

anne_of_mdi the unions helped back in the day when working conditions were horrible. But today the government had stepped in and made all the needed changes. So this protects us, we dont need unions, I have been on both sides and have seen the people that are in the union getting a free ride because of it. Doing the minimum and there is nothing the employer can do. In this time of the economy we dont need people skating by when there are people looking for jobs that will do the work. With major business leaving the state and we are only relying on small business then we need to make jobs and make sure people we have employed are working, not skating by.

Anne, offering supportive agreement for a person (harryharly) that makes racist comment(s?) seems to me somewhat hypocritical for a person who is as squeaky clean as you portray yourself to be.

mudboginmainer, thanks for your response. I think there always will be shirkers and I don't think they were created by unions. I also think unions are necessary to keep the pressure on the government watchdog agencies and the employers. Individual employees can't do it alone. The watchdog agencies are already underfunded! Without union pressure they would disappear. It is the unions who do the legwork on safeguarding fair and safe employment practices because they are the most motivated to do so. Clearly some people have had good employee - employer relationships, others have not. I can tell you from personal experience that unfair and unsafe working conditions continue to exist.

David, it was my impression that what he was referring to was the long odds.

You do not need a union to make a decent living in Maine. Just find a reputable company that has been around for awhile and takes care of their employees!!

Anne, I'm not sure, but I think you're smarter than that.

I'm not sure that I'm smarter than that either! Hopefully Mr. Harryharly will come back and explain it for us.

How about it, Mr. Harryharly?

david you missed the point,must ba a republican.

witty repartee.

harryharly, yes I do happen to be a Republican. What's your excuse for being a racist?

Hey harryharly, doesn't it bother you that in most union environments all workers are treated equal with respect to pay raises? In other words, if you bust your arse and give 110% every day you will still get the same raise as the slugs sitting around you which do little more than waste your state's/company's hard earned revenue. Doesn't that bother you, or are you one of those people who believes in Obama's "spread the wealth" plan?

Govt2Big, most workers in non-union jobs don't get any raises at all!

Anne, has Mr. HarryHarly satisfied you yet with his responses?