June 16, 2015
By LaborPress
The Maine House of Representatives defeated three bills intended to weaken labor unions June 12. By a 90-52 vote, it defeated a measure to prohibit unions from collecting fees from nonmembers they are legally required to represent—a bill whose sponsor, Rep. Larry Lockman (R-Amherst), claimed would set Maine workers “free from compulsory unionism.”
It was the third time in the last five years that the Legislature has rejected so-called “right-to-work” legislation; in 2013, Republican Gov. Paul LePage called that his “biggest failure” since he was elected in 2010. The House also defeated a bill to end “union release time,” in which state workers collect their usual salaries for time spent doing official union business, and another Lockman-sponsored measure that would have forbidden the state to deduct union dues from its employees’ paychecks. Read more
