Term limits law spawns union

AUGUSTA – Committee clerks, researchers and other nonpartisan staffers in the Legislature have formed a union, and their elected bosses’ term limits are a major reason they’ve taken a step unheard of in other states.

Negotiations between the fledgling union and managers to establish pay scales, benefits and contractual rights have been under way since early this year. Talks are moving slowly, as is common in an initial round of negotiations.

Most of the roughly 100 workers are affiliated with the Maine State Employees Association, which also represents the largest share of Maine’s unionized workers in the executive and judicial branches.

But unions in state legislative branches are rare, according to MSEA Executive Director Carl Leinonen, who knows of no other state where such an effort has taken hold.

“It was sort of like the missing link,” said Leinonen.

The National Conference of State Legislatures has done no comprehensive study, but “to the best of our knowledge no other legislative staff has undertaken that level of organization,” said Brian Weberg, director of legislative management programs for the conference.

Legislative leaders, who decide policy for the lawmaking branch of state government, are sharply divided on party lines over whether the staff union is a good idea.

“It’s a very difficult position to put the Legislature in,” said House Minority Leader Joe Bruno, R-Raymond, who is uncomfortable with leaders’ taking an adversarial role in the collective bargaining process.

Leinonen, who is proud of Maine’s distinction, said the state’s decade-old law limiting legislators to four consecutive two-year terms has had a significant influence on the legislative employees’ decision to unionize.

Lawmakers voted in 1998 to extend collective bargaining rights to the legislative staff, giving them equal standing with executive and judicial branch employees who already had won and exercised that right.

At first, there were only “pockets of interest” among legislative staffers in organizing, said Leinonen.

But as term limits took hold and the turnover of legislative leaders and committee chairs sped up, staffers’ interest in organizing grew.

They watched nervously as newly elected leaders brought along campaign workers and aides who were looking for jobs in the capitol, and concern grew that they would be displaced.

“Job security is huge,” said Susan Pinette, a Judiciary Committee clerk who spearheaded the union effort. “That is the biggie.”

In some cases, staffers’ fears were justified, as veterans were asked to sit for job interviews to get their old positions back, said Pinette.

Supporters of the union effort said legislative staffers want to be seen as nonpartisan and be able to focus on their work without having to worry about getting involved politically to protect their jobs.

In addition to clerks and researchers, union members include librarians, proofreaders, and fiscal office, legislative information and secretarial workers.

Some staffers, including legal analysts, are so concerned about maintaining their nonpartisan status that they formed an independent unit apart from the MSEA, which often endorses Democratic candidates and has a lobbying presence in the State House.

Not included are partisan staffers who work in the majority and minority offices and directly for the presiding officers. Those who are in the union do not have the right to strike.

Job security was not the only issue that gave impetus to the union movement.

During the 1998 debate before union authorization law was passed, some legislators drew attention to the hundreds of hours in overtime and frequent all-night shifts, particularly at the windup of legislative sessions, worked by the nonpartisan staff.

“I submitted the bill because … I think at times we, as a body, may treat some of the legislative employees as slaves, almost,” then-Rep. David Lindahl, R-Northport, said during the debate.

Supporters of the bill said the staffers wanted access to the process by which decisions affecting their livelihoods are made. They sought clear work rules and clear definitions of their rights and benefits.

Opponents questioned the need for a staff union, saying the Legislative Council is capable of negotiating a contract with its employees. Lawmakers also expressed concern over the cost of hiring a negotiator and administering the bargaining process, estimated then at $113,000.

John Cleveland, then a senator from Auburn, said he hoped the Legislature would “do the right thing … and not [use] this mechanism by which we have to have them organize in a unified group.”

The union authorization bill “reminds me of the person who wants us to pass the law to prevent them from doing something wrong,” said then-Sen. Philip Harriman, R-Yarmouth.