IBEW 2337 held an informational picket outside of the Seadogs Stadium, Maine's triple A team, last Thursday. In spite of the rain nearly fifty people showed up, to hand out fliers and inform the public.
The action coincided with Fairpoint's "Employee Appreciation Night." The members of IBEW 2327 and CWA 1400 haven't been feeling the love. Contrary to the unit's contract and to Fairpoint's previous promises, the company is taking away desperately needed jobs. A total of 100 jobs are being permanently outsourced to Canada. "This is our work. The revenue is generated in New England and the work should be done in New England." said Pete McLaughlin, the Business Manager of IBEW Local 2327
The truly unfortunate part about this story is that we all know that this sort of behavior has become commonplace, and frankly it's not going to change until we are a more powerful movement. Until wages and working conditions have risen everywhere, they will decline everywhere. That's why we need to organize.
That's why we need the Employee Free Choice Act. For every worker that is robbed the opportunity to join a union, we collectively are weakened. It's all or nothing. That's the meaning of Solidarity. Get active, call your Senators- even if it's the tenth time, because we need to get this done.
Check out more posts on Maine's labor movement here at the Maine AFL-CIO blog.