Benefit for laid-off Maine millworkers

The Fourth of July is a celebration of our freedom. A key part of that freedom is the freedom from the fear that some far off entity – like a despotic king – will come along and take what we have built. So “No taxation without representation” became a rallying cry for the colonists. And today, it’s not the King of England who wants to take our freedom away.

The people in the towns of Passadumkeag and Costigan built the saw mills there over a long period of time – at least 25 years. A generation of people -through sweat and hard work – made those mills.

Then a little more than a year ago, International Paper bought out Champion and with it those two mills. Within nine months IP shut down most operations at the mills in Passadumkeag and Costigan. The employees and their unions at the mills – the Paperwokers (PACE Local 80) at Passadumkeag and the Machinists (IAM Local 2732) – knew the mills were profitable.

They put together a group – including a former plant manager, local businesses and professors at the University of Maine – to buy the mills at fair market value. IP refused.

The entire Maine congressional delegation called on IP to listen to its employees and sell the mill. IP refused. The Maine Legislature and Gov. Angus King made the same appeal to IP. IP’s answer remained the same.

IP simply had a different interest from the workers at the mills. IP, as the largest pulp and paper company in the world, was looking at an oversupply of products. Soon after buying Champion, they began shutting down operations and laying off workers (3,000 more layoffs around the world by IP were announced a few days ago) in a bid to depress supply and so increase prices.

Keeping these operations shut down is probably smart business (in a monetary sense) for IP, but it’s very bad for all those communities like Passadumkeag and Costigan. Two hundred and sixty- three direct jobs were lost because of IP’s predatory style of business. The Maine Department of Labor estimates another 683 jobs will be lost as truckers, loggers and other related jobs feel the pinch.

In the face of the largest pulp and paper company in the world, the employees and their unions, the paperworkers and machinists, fought hard and well. They managed to keep approximately 15 jobs in each location and decent severance benefits.

This Fourth of July, there will be a benefit bean dinner, along with a band, to benefit laid-off mill- workers. This event is about having fun, celebrating mutual support, while building community. The musical portion of the event will happen in Eastern Park in Brewer – a popular location to watch the fireworks.

The event is being hosted by the Greater Bangor Area-Central Labor Council (GBA-CLC) at its union hall in Brewer and at Eastern Park in Brewer. The council includes 22 area unions and one retiree group, totaling more than 2,500 members in the Bangor area.

The council works to support jobs with fair pay and a voice on the job. It also works on other issues directly relevant to working families, like decent healthcare, fair taxes, affordable prescription drugs, ending sweatshops and dependable social security.

The council is dedicated to supporting our community. Eastern Park is a great example of this commitment. A good portion of the park itself, including most of its waterfront, is actually owned by the council. It is leased to the city of Brewer for the cost of the taxes on that piece of land itself. So the city effectively gets the land for free.

People may remember a few years ago when Warnaco, which owned Hathaway Shirt at the time, decided it could make even more money if it moved the work from Waterville to sweatshops in Honduras. The workers’ union, UNITE (the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees), led the fight to save that plant. That was a heroic struggle where countless people put untold hours of work into keeping those jobs in Waterville. And today there are hundreds of good-paying jobs in Waterville as a result.

The GBA-CLC believes the resources of our community shouldn’t be taken from us without any regard for our interests. Our freedom – and the freedom from want – rests on our ability to build our jobs and keep them in our community. Our unions are often the first line of defense in keeping jobs in our community when large corporations – with different interests – start to play the game.

The proceeds of the event will benefit millworkers laid off at Costigan and Passadumkeag and the CLC Solidarity Fund. The food, the hall and the time putting this together are all donated. Dinner is from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the Union Hall and the Late Money Band will begin playing at 7:30 p.m. in Eastern Park. The location of the Union Hall and Eastern Park are about a quarter of a mile down river from the Veterans Remembrance Bridge in Brewer.

This event is open to the public. Children are most welcome. Please come, have fun and help us celebrate our freedom and the solidarity which makes it all possible.

Jack McKay is the president and Roxanne Munksgaard is the vice president of the Greater Bangor Area Central Labor Council, composed of 22 unions. David Lowell is a representative for the Machinists Union Local 2732.