OSHA returns to federal building

BANGOR – Six months after it moved out, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s Bangor office operation has returned to the Margaret Chase Smith Federal Building.

After leaving the federal building on Valentine’s Day, staff set up temporary shop in a hotel room at the Ramada Inn on the Odlin Road.

The proposed move was part of a consolidation plan that called for closing the OSHA offices in Bangor and Portland and opening a new office in Augusta. That plan was called off last month, after members of Maine’s congressional delegation protested the measure, arguing that the merger would affect workers’ health and safety adversely and abandon large areas of Maine.

The move back into the federal building reportedly occurred early last week.

Questions about the move were referred to OSHA Area Director C. William Freeman III, who did not return telephone calls last week.

John Chavez, regional public affairs director for the U.S. Department of Labor in Boston and New York, said Monday that OSHA has been assigned temporary workplace and is expected to move into permanent space in the federal building by the end of the year.

Chavez, who said most OSHA-related business is conducted by telephone and facsimile, recommended that people needing to visit the Bangor OSHA office call 941-8177 first. Those wishing to visit the Portland office should call 780-3178.

The anticipated closure of the Bangor office prompted a protest in front of the federal building in Bangor on Jan. 31 that drew more than 20 demonstrators, including U.S. Rep. Michael Michaud, a papermaker by trade, and former Maine AFL-CIO President Charles O’Leary.

Organized by the Greater Bangor Area Central Labor Council, the protesters cited the hardships moving the office to Augusta would impose on workers from the northern parts of Maine. They said that maintaining the Bangor office would save workers and employers from northern Maine 160 extra driving miles – the estimated round-trip distance from Bangor to Augusta.

On Feb. 14, Bangor OSHA employees vacated space at the Margaret Chase Smith Federal Building to accommodate the planned expansion of the federal court system. The staff then was moved into the Ramada – at a cost of $500 a week – despite the availability of alternative office space in the area at a fraction of the cost.

After the consolidation was canceled, Bangor staffers were slated to return to the federal building, where the court reportedly needed less space than expected.

The U.S. Department of Labor, which oversees OSHA, decided to shift Portland operations to Augusta. Delegation members said they were disappointed that the Portland office was slated to move and said they would continue working with the Labor Department on the matter.

Led by Michaud, the delegation worked this winter to include language in the Omnibus Appropriations Act instructing OSHA to maintain its Bangor and Portland offices until Congress has had time to review the merger plan.

In addition, the House Appropriations Committee asked for documents showing the plan’s evolution – as well as a cost-based justification for the move.

That information never arrived, Peter Chandler, Michaud’s chief of staff, said Monday.

According to a recent statement from Michaud’s office, renovations at 330 Civic Center, where OSHA had planned to move, would have cost an estimated $200,000. That space has since been leased to a state government entity.