Maine voters reject effort to create the first statewide public power company
Maine voters reject effort to create the first statewide public power company
A historic referendum asked voters in Maine if they wanted to replace their privately owned utilities with a publicly owned one.
The measure, called Question 3, prompted heated debate in the months leading up to the election. Central Maine Power and Versant Power, the state’s dominant utilities, poured more than $40 million into a campaign opposing the referendum, outspending Pine Tree Power advocates 34 to 1. Political groups funded by the utilities and their parent companies mailed flyers and aired ads on TV, radio, and social media, urging Mainers to reject the measure, which would have effectively put the two companies out of business.
You're viewing a single thread.
As mentioned before this really did not have a chance.
This passed our legislature in 2021 but was vetoed by our Democrat governor Mills. That is why it became a referendum 2 years later.
Who will work for PTP?
If and when Pine Tree Power purchases the assets of CMP and Versant, the new nonprofit utility would have to hire an outside contractor (or contractors) to carry out the daily operations, routine maintenance and emergency response currently handled by employees of the two utilities.
In turn, that operations contractor will be required to hire back any of CMP’s and Versant’s unionized workers or other employees governed by contracts negotiated by the unions. The operator could also hire any other nonunionized or CMP or Versant employee except anyone who served on the two companies’ executive boards.
As an additional enticement, any returning workers would receive healthy retention bonuses of 8% and 6% during their first two years. Pine Tree Power and the new contractor must honor existing collective bargaining agreements and could not stop workers from striking or engaging in work slowdowns.
Those provisions haven’t won over union leaders at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which represents line workers and other employees at the two utilities.
After Mills vetoed an earlier Pine Tree Power bill in 2021, IBEW 1837 business manager Tony Sapienza said that “the change to a consumer-owned utility would bring with it tremendous risks and uncertainty” and the union remained “opposed to replacing Central Maine Power and Versant Power with a consumer-owned utility.”
Likewise, the executive board of the 40,000-member Maine AFL-CIO came out against Pine Tree Power last year.
“The majority of workers at CMP and Emera Maine do not support this proposal,” Maine AFL-CIO President Cynthia Phinney said at the time. “They do not want these companies sold and thrown into legal uncertainty.”
One concern raised by the unions is that, because Pine Tree Power would be a quasi-municipal entity run by an elected board, any workers could be considered public employees. Under state law, public workers are prohibited from striking.
Pine Tree Power and the Our Power campaign, meanwhile, accused CMP and Versant of “spending big on fear tactics and misinformation to trick both workers and customers” while predicting Pine Tree Power would lead to “more and better jobs for utility workers than the status quo.”
Damn. Even the union (and the AFL-CIO!) didn't want their community to have their own power. Marx continues to be burdened by the weight of being right all the time:
[Unions] fail partially from an injudicious use of their power. They fail generally from limiting themselves to a guerrilla war against the effects of the existing system, instead of simultaneously trying to change it, instead of using their organised forces as a lever for the final emancipation of the working class…
God this is depressing
Permanently Deleted