New booklet details Maine’s labor history Author outlines setbacks, victories

ORONO – Just in time for Labor Day 2007, a University of Maine historian and labor researcher has published a snapshot of Maine’s work force in 1907.

Charles Scontras, the author of numerous publications on labor history in Maine, has outlined some of the setbacks and milestones in Maine’s labor movement a century ago. The latest in a series of booklets, his “Labor Day 2007: Pausing to Reflect on Images of Maine Labor One Hundred Years Ago” was recently published by the UMaine Bureau of Labor Education.

Scontras’ 22-page monograph is significant because of its historical perspective, bureau director Bill Murphy said in an interview last week.

“Many of the issues and problems confronted by workers in the past still very much exist today, especially in the areas of employer hostility towards unions,” Murphy said. “Workers must be cautious when trying to organize a union, but they’re legitimately exercising their rights to do so.”

Today, 75 percent of employers who experience union organization drives hire anti-union consultants to help them avoid employee unionization, Murphy said, citing a recent study from Indiana University and the University of Texas.

In 1907, most factory workers had no unions to represent them and many laborers toiled 60 hours a week in buildings without adequate heat, ventilation or proper toilet facilities. With few worker safety measures in place, the workplace became increasingly dangerous. Perilous pulleys and belts, shafts, gears, fumes, dust, molten metals and hot liquids created new hazards for workers in mills, factories, workshops and mines.

At the time, Maine had only one inspector to police more than 8,000 establishments employing more than 75,000 workers. Crusaders for labor reform fought an uphill battle trying to persuade a state Legislature largely unsympathetic to Maine mill, quarry or woods employees.

The labor movement and its struggles in Maine and the nation challenged private power and its abuses, made capitalism more equitable, extended democracy to the workplace and proved critical in the creation of the nation’s middle class, according to the booklet.

“A lot of people simply have no idea of what went on in the past. We’re talking about people who worked in multistory buildings without a fire escape, … children who were whipped in our factories,” Scontras said last week.

The initiative and referendum procedures that are now frequently used by Maine residents owe their origins to the labor movement and others who were intent on restoring democracy, Scontras said in an interview.

Other Maine-based milestones in the booklet include the formation of the Lobster Fishermen’s International Protective Association and the Industrial Workers of the World strike at Marston Woolen Mills in Skowhegan.

“Labor Day 2007: Pausing to Reflect on Images of Maine Labor One Hundred Years Ago” is available for $3 per copy through the UMaine Bureau of Labor Education at 581-4124.