AUGUSTA, Maine — After more than a year of twists and turns, a bill that strips workers’ right to unionize at a Turner-based egg farm and its subsidiaries is poised for passage.
The Maine Senate on Thursday voted 18-17 to pass LD 1207. The mostly party line vote advances an amended version of the bill that has already cleared the House of Representatives.
Sen. Chris Rector, R-Thomaston, was the only Republican to oppose the measure.
Critics said the amended version was designed to soften a potentially unpopular proposal that will benefit an operation formerly managed by Jack DeCoster.
DeCoster’s checkered history of workplace violations had drawn controversy to LD 1207, prompting lawmakers to carry over the bill from last year. The company is now operated by a subsidiary of Land O’Lakes, Moark LLC. Proponents of the bill say the new management has eliminated the need for collective bargaining rights.
The rights were installed by the Legislature in 1997 after lawmakers determined that workers at the facility deserved the same unionizing rights as workers at industrial workplaces.
Republicans in the House of Representatives have already voted to pass LD 1207. The bill remained tabled in the Senate for several weeks, partially because several GOP senators were still wary of supporting it.
On Thursday, Sen. Brian Langley, R-Ellsworth, introduced the amendment that would direct the Department of Labor to review labor relations between employees at large agricultural facilities and their employers after five years.
Langley said that he shared concerns about work conditions at the facility. His amendment, he said, would ensure that the state would have a chance to evaluate the facility.
The amendment and new management was enough to persuade Republicans who initially opposed the bill.
Sen. Thomas Saviello, R-Wilton, said he recently visited the facility and saw much different workplace conditions than he did when DeCoster was overseeing operations. Saviello said he originally planned to vote against the bill.
“Jack DeCoster is gone,” Saviello said. “I’m very glad he’s gone and no longer in the state.”
Democrats and union advocates dismissed those arguments, saying Land O’Lakes entered the current 10-year lease agreement knowing that workers had the right to unionize.
Phil Bartlett, D-Gorham, called the bill a corporate giveaway.
“Why in the world are we doing this? … There’s no union there,” Bartlett said. “As long as management continues to treat their workers well there will be no incentive to unionize.”
Sen. Garrett Mason, R-Lisbon Falls, said collective bargaining rights created uncertainty for the business owner. Mason, a co-sponsor of the bill, said the 1997 law was “far outside the norm” for other states.
The bill was introduced last year, several months before rumors circulated that Land O’Lakes was in negotiations with DeCoster. The original bill would have removed agricultural workers’ right to earn overtime. It was later scaled back to strip collective bargaining rights.
Federal law limits unionizing rights for agricultural employees. However, with the increase in industrial scale agricultural operations, nine states have passed laws allowing certain agricultural employees to unionize.
California, where Land O’Lakes and Moark LLC currently operate, has adopted such a law.
Workers in Turner attempted to unionize after the 1997 law was passed, but the effort failed.
Sen. Debra Plowman, R-Hampden, said the law had done little to improve workplace conditions at the facility.
“For all the protection that you thought that you gave, you gave none,” Plowman said.
She said Land O’Lakes was too well-known to jeopardize its reputation.
“This company doesn’t need a stick over its head,” she said.
Lawmakers who supported the law’s repeal said it unfairly targets one business. Rep. Jeffrey Timberlake, R-Turner, also said Jack DeCoster has every intention of selling the business to Moark.
The bill was opposed by unions and worker advocates. Matt Schlobohm, of the AFL-CIO, has said workers at the facility “do low-paying, difficult, dangerous and dirty work” and should have the right to form a union to better themselves if they so choose.
DeCoster in November turned over the operations to Moark. Jeanne Forbis, a spokeswoman for Moark, told the Sun Journal that the senior managers were dismissed when Moark inked the deal with DeCoster. Forbis could not say how many managers were let go.
The Land O’Lakes subsidiary will be the sole operator of egg production, processing and warehousing operations at the farms.
Moark will have the option of buying the facilities after 10 years. Lease or sale prices and other financial details have not been released.
Moark operates egg farms in California, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Ohio and Massachusetts.
To see more from the Sun Journal visit sunjournal.com
{ Sen. Garrett Mason, R-Lisbon Falls, said collective bargaining rights created uncertainty for the business owner. Mason, a co-sponsor of the bill, said the 1997 law was “far outside the norm” for other states.}
So one falls and the rest follow by example!
Isin’t that the “Dominoe Effect” that we went to war for in Vietnam?
How is it OK when workers rights to organise are being suppressed in America?
It is all part of the “WalMarting” of America. Low wage jobs, no benefits, and the owners can stack up billions. All those employees should just walk out and go on welfare, it pays better these days.
I thought being unlike other states was a good thing. Huh? We’re Maine, not Massachusetts.
Now aren’t we all assured that these workers will be well taken care of and all the abuses they suffered in the past will never occur again? Or is it that some of us are happy that they can be abused again? I’m thinking the answer to those questions is no and quite sadly, yes.
Must have made the self-centered, vile teapartiers happy. This is how big business succeeds and crushes the little guy. Someday the brain-dead teapartiers will catch on and realize the “little guy” is THEM.
So when the unionized workers strike and 50,000 chickens don’t get fed, are you still going to cling to the idea that unions are a good idea?
Let the free thinking and acting humans accept their job or quit if they wish, but don’t give them the tools for rampant animal abuse!
George?
Orwell?
Is that you?
Have we had a strike lately against any company by the union workers? Workers today are glad to have a job especially, if the job pays enough to support them. IMHO these egg farm workers need a union to protect them from any kind of abuse. When have you heard of 50,000 chickens not being fed? If I am wrong in either of my questions, I apologize.
Nonsequitur. Look it up.
when the dust clears the air, the workplace can become a modernized sweatshop. With no right for the workers to unionize or protect themselves. It looks like were going back to the dark ages.
Leased’, ‘ink’ed’, ‘Option to buy’ ? Who’s kidding who ? DeCoster still OWNS the place. LOL is the OPERATOR. Legally, DeCoster still has the final say on everything until LOL has clear and final title to the whole place. This whole thing is nothing more than a smoke and mirror’s ‘dog and pony’ show that was designed to hide the actual and true ownership of the place. And I’d be willing to bet dollars to donuts that these same folk’s who are in such a rush to get this legislation signed and on the book’s are also huge recipient’s of DeCoster campaign contribution’s. Egg’s and chicken sXXt aren’t the only thing that smells here.
Many Republicans Legislators are also Buisness Owners!
Its like letting the Fox Gaurd the Hen House!
In this case “”literally””!
It’s truly a shame we have those in our government and their supporters who think unions are un-American. As far as commercial eggs are concerned, they’re nasty, with their thin shells, pale yellow yokes and watery whites it’s no wonder the commercial egg business stinks. Buy local fresh eggs from one of the many who sell a product far superior, forgo the slave labor version and eat healthy.
Langley……….I think you should go work in that muck hole and see how you like it!! Unions enforce safe working conditions and livable wages. Disgusting……….I hope everyone quits there jobs from that hole and collects welfare. The state deserves this. boycott eggs!! Go vegan!
I’ve never understood how the government can abrogate the right of people to assemble, something specifically addressed and guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution.
I don’t understand it either. Why is our legislature even involved in this?
It’s easy to understand ….. Corporatism vs. Democracy, the push is on to make this country a corporate utopia and the only rights people will have will be those granted to us by corporate interests.
DONOT put your guard down with ole Jack(the ripper)Decoster! when this man dies there going to have to screw him in the ground!He throws a little money to the community and a church or to and he’s a saint! He IS NOT A NICE MAN look at his record the man should be in jail here in Maine and more so in Ohio where he has pig farms.He leased the egg farm before and screwed the to
Tell my how any workers can be told they can’t organize? How can forming a union be illegal? If workers band to gather together and want to form a union, how can that be illegal? What country are we in? Do we have to go through another period of time like we did in the 30’s when labor won the rights of organizing, striking and collective bargaining? Does history have to repeat itself? Why has the Maine legislature about to approve a bill that seeks to continue the vilest exploitation of workers who don’t have a voice as they are at the bottom rung of the ladder of working people. This is an abomination and labor in Maine will bring political ruin upon the supporters of this bill.
Agricultural workers, I believe, are not protected by the same labor laws. Add that to the fact that so many uninformed people spout anti-union messages their party has fed them and you begin to see the backward slide into the Dark Ages.
Unfortunately, the teapartiers, who are largely uneducated, have by osmosis, almost, absorbed the message from big business that the labor movement is comprised of lazy, evil, freeloaders.
We can only hope they see the light before they find themselves in that same dark place…as big business, in the form of LePage et al, laugh all the way to the bank.
Its sad that as Americans we are slowly loosing our rights..I was a union member for 30 yrs(not a big fan)but we are being told what we can or cannot do.AND maybe someday you will here,You Will buy healthcare insurance….
Very sad day for Maine. Slavery is back. To think Maine fought against slavery in the Civil War. How things have changed.
Under slavery, workers are owned individually.
Today, workers are owned as an entire class.
You can definitely say Decoster Egg owns these desperate slaves. In fact they are making more money off these poor souls since Decoster Egg isn’t providing their free shelter or food. Yes they have one thing, their freedom, but freedom to go where, to earn a decent living.
He is saving on Leg Irons To!
How things have changed
Yeah! We actually get to “”go home “” after working all day!
Were are all the union haters i would thing they would be in groves praising this ?
God forbid that this state led by the Repulican/NHPC/ALEC/Tea Party should have on of two places in this country that has/had the right to have a union representing farm workers.
This is just another in a long list of attacks on labor in this country and state.
Right to work.
Teenage training wage.
School age children made to work late on school nights.
etc.
All these little chips from the axe will eventually lead to the tree of labor rights falling to the ground.
Or we can fight back and kick their extreme keister’s out in 2012? OR start national boycotts against those who are pulling this crap. We’ve seen it work several times now with Verizon, Target, Bank of America and the likes, it will work again and no one will ever have to eat another DeCoster hocker.
If Land O’Lakes is such a benevolent employer, what do they have to fear from a union? If they’re treating the employees well there should be few complaints.
Just another little piece of freedom taken away by the Republicans. Now just stay tuned they will be screaming about Pres. Obama taking away freedoms.
What a bunch of hypocrites.
The Eggs of Wrath
Its tells you all you need to know about a political party and its agenda; when it rushes to the aid of a universally acknowledged industrial stink bomb and failed human being as Jack DeCoster, and his despicable, morally bankrupt egg operation. They probably look at it like killing two birds with one stone. Now they can smell just as bad as Jack!
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, provides that “no state shall … deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
So here we have the State of Maine saying some people have a right to join a union but some do not. The only criteria seems to where you work.
The trouble is half of the Legislators haven’t the brains to understand the constitution and the other half dont care !
They can pass illegal bills all day long and unless it is contested in an appeals court they get away with it !
Everyone of the republicons that voted for that stupid bill should be forced to live and work there for a year.
yessah
So…in the middle of the road, the Maine Legislature and others are preventing by law, that is, a person’s right’s for collective bargaining and unionizing?
Someone down below mentioned the nasty type eggs produced by commercial egg farming. Yup! Chickens are fed a roundup stew of recycled chickens who died in the chicken houses, blood, guts, feathers, and a mixture of grains and even chicken defecation thrown-into the food and feed they eat to make them grow fat and temporarily happy. You eat what you sow. Ask anyone who has worked in the Tyson or Pilgrim’s Pride chicken business and they can tell you. But that said, any type of animal-product commercial business is not as clean as an office job. Don’t expect it!