Casino developer, unions reach accord Agreement will allow nonunion contractors to work on project

BANGOR – A $650 million casino planned for southern Maine likely will be built with the hands of Maine workers, but not necessarily union workers, according to the terms of a labor pact announced Tuesday.

“We are looking to promote the well-being of people both in the Penobscot Nation and the entire state,” said Barry Dana, the tribe’s chief, announcing the agreement over the roar of a passing 50-ton dump truck at the Lane Construction Corp. quarry in Bangor.

Casino backers dubbed the occasion a “big day” in the Penobscot Nation and Passamaquoddy Tribe’s effort to open a casino resort, a construction project that would employ 2,000 people and take two to three years to build if approved by voters at a November referendum.

The agreement between the project’s Las Vegas-based developer, Marnell Corrao, and the Maine Building Trades Council, an association of 14 construction trade unions, does not prevent nonunion contractors from working on the project, according to those at the news conference.

Instead, it only requires that they offer “fair wages” and family health benefits, said Erin Lehane, campaign manager for Think About It, the pro-casino political action committee that organized the press event.

While the pact does not specifically guarantee the project to union workers, as do many such agreements, union officials on hand Tuesday praised the deal.

“We fully expect that many of our workers are going to work on this project,” said AFL-CIO president Ed Gorham after the news conference. “It’s good pay and good benefits, and that’s what’s important now.”

The partnership is as much political as practical, given the union’s history of putting its money and manpower into campaigns for union-supported candidates and issues.

Gorham said Tuesday the November referendum would be no different, promising to use the union’s clout to bring voters to the polls.

“We will do the things that we have become reasonably adept at doing,” he said. “In this case, that’s getting voters out to support this.”

But some pundits said the union’s political machine might not be as adept at influencing the casino vote as it has been in past campaigns, including Democrat U.S. Rep. Mike Michaud’s 2002 win over five primary challengers and, later, GOP rival Kevin Raye.

“I would expect [the union’s] membership to be as divided on [the casino] question as the general public,” said political analyst Jim Melcher, a political science professor at the University of Maine at Farmington. “It’s easier for a union to deliver its people on something that appeals to them more broadly, like a candidate, than something like this.”

Although they technically are not shut out of the deal, officials representing nonunion construction companies were skeptical.

Tim Walton, president of Associated Builders and Contractors of Maine, called the agreement unfair, because the labor unions would dictate what constitutes a “fair wage.”

“This just flies in the face of free enterprise,” said Walton, whose group represents 150 nonunion construction companies. “You’re basically saying unless you play by our rules, you can’t work on this project.”

Reached later, Lehane of Think About It didn’t disagree with Walton’s statement.

“Pay a fair wage like the unions do, and you can come on the site,” she said. “We’re trying to ensure a workplace where people are treated well.”

Critics of the deal, including Walton, also cited the makeup of the Bangor news conference, featuring union speakers and being held at a unionized construction company, as another clue that the deal only paid lip service to nonunion workers.

Walton said nonunion employees make up about 90 percent of Maine’s construction work force.

The agreement comes on the heels of last week’s announcement that the tribes had purchased an option on 300 acres of industrial land in Sanford, a town of about 20,000 south of Portland.

The casino’s developers have focused on southern Maine in hopes of taking advantage of the Boston market.