Members of the Maine Service Employees Association, Local 1989 of the Service Employees International Union, hold a lunchtime rally during a Department of Financial Services employee appreciation event in Augusta on Sept. 12. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal
More than 9,000 Maine government employees will receive pay raises, more time off and increased parental leave in the new year.
The Maine Service Employees Association, Local 1989 of the Service Employees International Union, ratified four contracts on Saturday. The agreement covers executive branch employees working in operations, maintenance and support services, administrative services, and professional-technical services and supervisory services.
Employees will receive a 6% pay increase beginning Jan. 1, an $800 payment in February in lieu of retroactive raises and an additional 3% pay bump starting in July.
The contracts also include a child care reimbursement of up to $2,000 for certain workers, increased mileage reimbursement and increased longevity pay after five years of employment.
State executive branch workers have been pushing for higher wages for months. They are paid, on average, 15% less than other public workers or their counterparts in the private sector, according to two studies cited by the union. Union members and leaders say that disparity has led to a significant number of vacancies in the state’s executive branch.
During the negotiations, which began after their previous contract expired on June 30, workers held multiple demonstrations, including a protest outside the Blaine House in September and a November event in which workers hand delivered over 1,100 letters to the governor asking for pay equivalent to their private sector counterparts.
MSEA’s push for higher wages intensified as the state announced its projected $265 million budget surplus for the current biennial budget and its $257 million budget surplus for the following two years.
“The state has no excuse for failing to pay market-rate wages to the state workers,” Morgan Dunton, a member of the union’s negotiating team, said in Nov. 29 statement about the negotiations.
Under the contracts in effect now, pay for unionized state executive branch employees starts at $15 an hour. Maximum pay varies greatly between departments, from a maximum of $30 an hour, or $62,338 per year, for administrative employees to $39.38 an hour, or $82,000 per year, for professional or technical workers. Pay depends on the specific role and the employee’s longevity.
For a customer rep associate, for example, the minimum pay is $15 an hour. Maximum pay, for someone who has worked eight years or more, is $21.93.
The minimum pay for a maintenance mechanic, a role that requires two years of experience, is $15 an hour and goes up to $18.56 an hour after eight years of work.
In a statement about the ratification, Dean Staffieri, president of MSEA, said he is encouraged that the contracts include a written agreement with the Mills administration to negotiate and implement a new job classification and compensation plan in 2024 to continue to address the pay gap.
Job classification and compensation negotiations will begin by Jan. 31.
The union negotiations team decided to hold the ratification vote this month because the Legislature’s funding authorization for the new contracts would have expired Dec. 31.
The state said the new contracts demonstrate its “commitment to providing competitive wages and benefits for state of Maine employees,” said Kirsten Figueroa, commissioner of the Maine Department of Administrative and Financial Services.
“We are now on track to increase wages by at least 23% since taking office while significantly improving benefits,” Figueroa said.
The MSEA’s contract agreements come as unions triumphed across the country in 2023. Autoworkers, Hollywood actors and writers, airline pilots and delivery drivers are just some of the workers who came together to fight for better pay and benefits, and a share of the wealth when the companies they work for are profitable.
In the first quarter of 2023, union workers who ratified new contracts received an average first-year pay raise of 7.8%, according to Bloomberg Law’s quarterly union wage data report. That is the highest average wage increase since 2008, Bloomberg Law said.
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