Maine AFL-CIO

Psychiatric Nurses who work at Dorothea Dix Psychiatric Center and Riverview Psychiatric Center work with some of the most severely mentally ill patients in the state. Some of those patients are voluntarily receiving mental health treatment, while others have been involuntarily committed by the courts for committing serious crimes. The nurses that work with these patients have been thrown on the floor, punched, kicked, choked and verbally assaulted, often during 12-hour night shifts. In recognition of the risks they take every day these psychiatric nurses are now eligible to retire with dignity at age 55 with 25 years of service.

Before this supplemental budget passed, a nurse or a firefighter was in the same tax bracket as a multi-millionaire. That changed when legislators required millionaires to pay an additional 2 percent tax on annual income over $1 million, bringing some much-needed fairness to our tax code. The budget also added $10 million in annual funding to the Child Care Affordability Program to help working families pay for child care and improved retirement security for mental health crisis workers and workers in the Office of Chief Medical Examiner.

Nurses, healthcare workers and working people in rural Maine have been hit hard by hospital unit closures, including a rash of birthing unit closures in Maine. Maine has lost 33 percent of rural hospital labor and delivery units since 2020, and people in rural towns drive an average of 45 minutes to the nearest birthing hospital. This new law will require hospitals to notify the public before termination or change in the level of maternity or newborn care services, requires notification of affected patients and provides opportunities for communities to think about how they can act collectively to address closures.

The 2026 ICE raids carried out by federal immigration agents in Maine caused chaos and put working people in danger. Immigrants perform important work in our state, like taking care of young children and the elderly, growing our food and fixing our homes and businesses. Immigrants are also our union brothers and sisters and they are vital to the fabric of our communities, our economy, and the labor movement. One in five workers in America are foreign born and one in four children have an immigrant parent. LD 2106 restricted public employees from voluntarily cooperating with federal immigration enforcement in civic institutions like our schools and hospitals.

Federal and State employees in Maine are the backbone of essential services, from providing health care, maintaining roads, providing public safety and caring for our veterans to maintaining our Navy submarines and safeguarding aviation systems and infrastructure. During government shutdowns these workers are forced to work without pay or are furloughed. This bill would ensure that eligibility for interest-free loans during government shutdowns is not dependent on applying for unemployment benefits, credit checks, membership status at banks, or appearing in person.

For thousands of working families, finding quality, affordable child care is a constant struggle. The cost is sky high, and there aren’t enough slots to go around. As a result, working parents struggle to pay their bills, have to cut back on hours, and juggle work and home responsibilities. The Child Care Affordability Program supports working families afford childcare. Since 2024, working people eligible for the program have been put on a waitlist for child care subsidies. LD 1955 eliminated the waitlist and allowed hard-working families to get much-needed help paying for the child care they desperately need.

Everyone should have an equal opportunity to enter the job market and earn a living without being permanently penalized by an old record. A past record often acts as a lifelong barrier to employment, stable housing, and higher education. LD 1911 would have created a system to seal a limited number of low-level arrest or conviction records for individuals who have remained crime-free for a period of five years. Sealing records helps people find well-paying jobs, addresses labor shortages and expands union membership.

Corporate profits have hit record highs. Meanwhile, big multinational corporations continue to take advantage of loopholes and accounting schemes, like sheltering profits in offshore tax havens, to avoid paying taxes. This bill would have raised Maine’s corporate tax rate on profits over $3.5 million from 8.93 percent to 10 percent, generating $50 million annually to support agriculture and vital services. It targeted large corporations, not small businesses.

When a worker’s wages are stolen, they can’t pay their rent or mortgage, put gas in their car or feed their family. In the last three years, more than $1.8 million dollars owed to Maine workers went unpaid. These lost wages are from workers not receiving overtime pay, not being paid for all hours worked or being paid less than minimum wage. LD 1587 gives the Bureau of Labor Standards the same investigatory tools already in place at other state agencies, protecting workers against wage theft and ensuring that Maine workers get paid promptly for the important work that we do.

Maine people spend a lot of money through the Efficiency Maine Trust to help improve energy efficiency in Maine. When expending taxpayer or ratepayer dollars, it’s important to ensure that we provide high quality jobs to the people doing the work that is so vital to helping Mainers cut their energy bills and fight climate change. This bill was amended to a study directing the Efficiency Maine Trust to evaluate the quality of jobs - measured by things like wages, retirement, benefits, training - created by energy efficiency projects funded through its programs.

When law enforcement, corrections officers, dispatchers, firefighters and EMS personnel get post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the burden of proof is on the employer to prove that the condition is not work related. Otherwise, it is incredibly difficult, costly and time consuming for workers to prove which specific incident caused their PTSD when applying for workers’ compensation benefits. This so-called “rebuttable presumption” law was scheduled to sunset in 2025. LD 82 supports first responders with PTSD by making this temporary law permanent.

Sponsored by Rep. Matt Beck, an IBEW 1837 retiree, this bill directs the Maine Department of Labor, in partnership with the Governor’s Energy Office and departments with jurisdiction over energy matters, to develop a fact sheet and technical resource guide for businesses that clearly outlines state laws around wage and hour laws, labor standards, workforce requirements and benchmarks related to energy projects and programs.

Roughly one in six state positions are vacant, largely due to insufficient pay. Chronic understaffing leads to a negative impact on the delivery of crucial public services and deteriorates morale in state employment, ultimately undermining working conditions and driving down wages for all workers across the board. This bill would create the State Employee Compensation Stabilization Fund to capture excess budget resources for the purpose of raising State Employee pay and closing the pay gap.

LD 1270 will help ensure that the thousands of clean energy jobs created in Maine will be high-quality jobs that retain a well-trained, skilled workforce. The bill improves prevailing wages statewide by limiting the wide fluctuation in prevailing wages that often occurs in rural counties in Maine. It incentivizes project developers to enter into Project Labor Agreements (PLA) that utilize registered apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship programs. This new law requires all contractors, whether union or non-union, to pay rates that guarantee fair wages, including healthcare and retirement packages.

Certified pre-apprenticeships and registered apprenticeships are a tried and true method to get more people into the trades. The Maine AFL-CIO has had great success running our Union Construction Academy pre-apprenticeship program opening career pathways into the union construction trades to many more workers in Maine. LD 1117 strengthens standards for pre-apprenticeship in Maine and sets out a process to provide sustainable and durable funding to these programs.

Across the state school districts are facing tough decisions, including laying off teachers and staff, due to budget shortfalls caused by inflation and the ending of federal pandemic relief money. Gov. Paul LePage’s 2011 tax cuts for the rich eliminated millions of dollars in revenue and resulted in a tax code that treats someone earning over $61,600 the same as a millionaire. LD 1089 would have added a surcharge of 2% on the portion of a taxpayer’s Maine taxable income in excess of $1 million to fund public pre-K-12 education.

Federal and State employees in Maine are the backbone of essential services, from providing health care, maintaining roads, providing public safety and protecting our most vulnerable to maintaining our Navy submarines and safeguarding aviation and infrastructure. LD 874 will provide financial support to state and federal workers who are forced to work without pay or furloughed during a government shutdown. The bill creates a loan guarantee program offering interest-free loans to help cover lost income for essential state and federal employees during government shutdowns.

This two-year budget passed during a time of uncertainty related to federal funding and provided important clarity on the state’s commitment to fully fund public services and avoid a state shutdown. This budget fully funded Revenue Sharing to municipalities, covered 55% of K-12 education costs, and effectively eliminated the possibility of a government shutdown.

In harvesting the food we put on our tables everyday, farmworkers do some of the most valuable work in our society and they deserve dignity and fair wages. Farmworkers are currently excluded from critical labor laws like Maine’s minimum wage and overtime. LD 589 addressed wages for farmworkers by making them eligible for the state minimum wage and protecting farm workers’ right to take action in court if their wages are stolen. This bill was passed by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Mills.

So called “right-to-work” laws are designed to weaken unions, drive down wages and allow workers to get the benefits of unions without paying dues. Currently in Maine in the private sector, unions and employers can negotiate contracts where all workers who benefit from a collective bargaining agreement share in the costs of bargaining and representation. LD 187 would have made it illegal for employers and employees to agree that all workers who benefit from a collective bargaining agreement share in the costs.