Laid-off workers need dignity restored

Right now in the Bangor area, many laid-off workers can’t live with dignity. They can’t pay their mortgages, electric bills or heat bills. Many children won’t get much for Christmas this year. Many can’t afford their COBRA (extended health insurance for qualified laid-off workers) payments – meaning many families will lose medical care.

At this time in Washington, the members of the Senate are debating an economic stimulus bill that would help laid-off workers and jumpstart the economy. This is long overdue. Nearly a month ago, Senate Republicans, including Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, used a procedural measure to kill a measure that would have given laid-off workers much better aid than what is currently being discussed.

Here in Maine we have 29,600 people without jobs. Paul Luce, coordinator of the Maine Department of Labor’s Rapid Response program, says, “It’s the worst year for dislocated workers since I’ve been here – nine years. We are processing double the number of workers than we normally do. That translates into 9,000 workers so far this year.”

Just like the rest of the state, the Bangor area has suffered job losses. Saucony has announced that it will shut down its Bangor plant by the end of the year, laying off 110 workers. International Paper permanently laid off 262 workers in Passa-dumkeag and Costigan earlier in the year and just last Wednesday IP announced the permanent shutdown of these two plants, throwing another 36 people out of work. Dexter Shoe is laying off more than 475 workers in Dexter. Earlier in the year Jordan Meats shut down in Bangor, laying off more than 100 people.

What happens to these workers when their jobs are ended? For

the laid-off workers at Costigan and Passadumkeag, it has been pretty grim. After seven months, 27 percent remain unemployed. For the nearly 75 percent who found work, their pay is on average $3.50 less an hour.

The pay only shows half of the picture. At their old jobs health insurance premiums were $31 a week. Now, workers are being offered health insurance at premiums between $45 and $115 a week. Low wages and high premiums have forced these workers to choose between food and medical treatment. And these are the lucky ones. More than 70 workers from those two plants still haven’t found work – and their unemployment benefits have run out, or will run out soon.

In the aftermath of Sept. 11, when the airline companies came close to imploding, Congress immediately gave a $15 billion bailout. However, for the 140,000 airline workers devastated by no work, Congress gave not one penny.

Across the nation unemployment is skyrocketing as we are now in the middle of a recession. There were 2.2 million more workers unemployed in October 2001 than in October 2000. That is the largest increase for any 12-month period in more than 20 years according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. In November of this year, companies cut more than 300,000 jobs and have cut nearly three million jobs in the last three months.

The Greater Bangor Area Central Labor Council (GBA-CLC) membership includes 22 unions and two retiree groups representing more than 2,500 members in the Bangor area. We strive to help workers have dignity at work – and we support workers and their families who are thrown out of work. As part of this effort, our Central Labor Council maintains a food bank to help assist laid-off workers with at least the minimum necessity of food as well as supporting public policy, which aids workers and their families.

Knowing the difficulties that local workers are going through and concerned by the lack of attention that the U.S. Senate has put on this issue, officers of our Labor Council recently arranged a meeting with the Bangor representative of Sen. Susan Collins.

One of our biggest concerns is making sure that lawmakers find ways to help workers to keep their medical coverage. The bill that Sens. Collins and Snowe helped kill nearly a month ago included $31 billion in aid for unemployed and health care benefits. Today, Senate Democrats are pushing for the federal government to pay 75 percent of workers’ COBRA payments.

When we met with Sen. Collins’ representative, we asked her what Collins was proposing to do to help workers with their COBRA payments. The representative told us that Collins sought to win a tax credit equal to 50 percent of COBRA payments. We asked how workers could make COBRA payments – in many cases $800

a month – today, and wait for the benefit of tax credit in April (even supposing as unemployed they needed tax breaks). The representative told us that workers could put it on their credit cards. We don’t think this is the right solution.

We later learned that Collins

supports another approach, which may entail the government sending the credit refunds before April, but this watered-down approach advocated by Collins is too little, too late for many Maine families.

Workers in Maine have problems that are just as real as the problems of the airline companies. The airline companies got the help they needed to avoid bankruptcy, but many families in Maine are not so lucky. It is interesting to note Sen. Collins voted for a bankruptcy bill, which makes the problems of families going into debt worse. According to a New York Times article on June 12, the bankruptcy bill “has alarmed consumer advocates, who say that the bill is a reward to banks and credit card companies in exchange for a drastic increase in their campaign contributions to both parties. The overhaul, they say, would harm vulnerable debtors who have been forced into bankruptcy because of medical

bills, job loss or divorce.”

Now, more than ever, our elected leaders should support policies which help all members of our society, including the poorest and most vulnerable, not just the richest and most powerful. Specifically, we want our senators to support a bill that includes 75 percent of COBRA payments for qualifying laid-off workers, increased Medicaid funds and an increase in workers’ unemployment benefits by 15 percent (these benefits cover only 33 percent of lost wages today, compared to 50 percent two decades ago). During the final negotiations for the economic stimulus package Sens. Collins and Snowe should listen to – and remember – that the concerns of the people of Maine need to be heard at least as clearly as those of big business.

Pat McCoy, Jack McKay and Roxanne Munksgaard are officers with the Greater Bangor Area Central Labor Council.