A weekend interview that Gov. Paul LePage gave to a national press outlet has racheted up the rhetoric in the ongoing battle over right-to-work legislation in Maine. The governor says he will do everything he can to get a bill passed prohibiting agreements between trade unions and private sector employees that makes union membership or dues a condition of employment. Labor leaders in Maine say they will vigorously oppose any effort to pass a right-to-work law, which they say discourages workers from organizing. 

Gov. Paul LePage was hundreds of miles away at the National Governor's Association in Washington, D.C.  But his goals for a Maine right-to-work law quickly made their way back home after reporters from Politico.com interviewed the governor on the volatile issue that requires private sector employees to pay dues as a condition of employment.

Speaking at a labor rally Saturday at the State House, former Maine AFL-CIO President Ed Gorham had a message for LePage.
"Scabs out, union in; scabs out union in scabs out union in--the exit's on the left governor," Gorham said.

Gorham says efforts to pass a right to work law have failed in Maine for years, largely because of the chilling effect it has on forming and retaining a collective bargaining unit.

"Right-to-work went to referendum in Maine in 1948 and got beat two-to-one," Gorham said. "If it comes back again in this session of the Legislature, it will get beat again two-to-one in referendum if it's necessary.  But at the same time we have to watch out for what's happening with our brothers and sisters who are engaged in public employment. Whether it's at the muncipal level, the state level, the county level, it doesn't matter; they're all under attack--and they're all at risk of losing their jobs, their employment, health care, their pensions and everything that goes with it."

But LePage told reporters with Politco.com that his administration is pushing a right-to-work agenda. "We're going after right-to-work," LePage said. "I believe that the Declaration of Independence says 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.' Whenever someone forces me to do something agasinst my will, they're infringing upon my freedoms and my liberties and that's what I think we are doing in Maine when we have fair share."

"He said the American pursuit of happiness meant that if you work in a mill or a place that has a union and that union gets you benefits that you shouldn't have to pay for those things," said Emery Deabay, a Bucksport steel worker who is familiar with the fair share provisions that require workers to join a union or pay a share of dues to the union that represents their interests in collective bargaining with management.

Deabay says says the right-to-work law that LePage favors would reshape the playing field to allow managers to assume a variety of private sector tactics. Deabay made a veiled reference to LePage's decision not to rehire some executive branch workers and instead put his 22-year-old daughter Lauren on the state payroll for a $41,000 per year job in the governor's office.

"I don't know about my pursuit of happiness about working with freeloaders, I ain't figured that out yet," Deabay said. "And the other thing is, what about all the people who work in non-union outfits that work at will, and when they come to work one day their boss doesn't like the way they look, so they send him home? Or their boss has a daughter that wants a job so she sends him home?  What about those people?"

At the Maine State Employees Association, Chris Quint says the LePage administration clearly has workers of all varieties in their cross-hairs and Republican majorities in the House and Senate could give the governor the encouragement to move forward on pro-management initiatives.

"Whether it be right-to-work or the attacks that state workers and teachers are facing in the budget with the pension and health care, it's all part of what we're seeing across the country of rather well-funded, well-coordinated strategy," Quint said.

The governor says his position is that people have as much of a fundamental right not to pay union dues as they do to pay them.