Editor’s note: This story is part of a series of profiles on Maine organizations that attempt to influence the Legislature, the governor and the media through their research and advocacy.

Despite the ever-present threat of losing members as more government work is contracted out to the private sector, the state employees union wields considerable political clout in Augusta and has had some major victories under the Baldacci administration and the Democratically controlled House and Senate.

Membership is up from 10 years ago, according to Maine State Employee Association (MSEA) records, which show 9,000 working members and 1,800 retirees.

The non-partisan staff working for the Legislature just came on board in 2002, forming its own local under the MSEA and reportedly making Maine the only state in the nation to have all three branches of government unionized.

Growing in Augusta, however, has not been easy, according to Tim Belcher, the new executive director of the MSEA.

“There’s a steady pressure to hand more and more state jobs to private agencies,” Belcher said, and that cuts into potential membership while giving taxpayers the impression they are paying less for state government. He called it “a dishonest game with position counts.”

So the state union, under a push from its parent – the Service Employees International Union – is also going after private sector workers paid by the government.

They are targeting personal care assistants paid for by Medicaid and their attention is paying off.

With the backing of Senate President Beth Edmonds, an estimated 1,400 personal assistants are getting their first pay raise since 1998 – going from $7.71 cents an hour to $9 an hour. And, the new Union of Direct Care Workers, Local 771, is working to sign up members from Alpha One, the agency that has a contract with the state to provide personal assistants to people with disabilities.

“It’s astonishing,” said Sen. Peter Mills of the union’s power under the Democratically controlled statehouse dome. “They have demanded and got some very significant things.”

He ticked off three, including health care benefits in retirement that have to be the same as those offered to current workers; a contract that allows them to charge non-union workers a negotiating fee as a condition of state employment; and, a pay upgrade for most clerical workers.

Mills, who was the only Republican candidate to approach the MSEA for its backing in the primary, said he told them, “My vision is there would be fewer of you and I’d probably pay those that remain a lot more.”

The MSEA didn’t endorse Mills, and instead came out strongly for the re-election of Gov. John Baldacci.

Political power

Belcher admits the union almost always backs Democrats.

“As a practical matter, recent endorsements have been overwhelmingly, if not all Democratic,” he said, joking they used to be able to support at least one Republican – Sen. Art Mayo – but he switched parties.

“We don’t like that. We’re not happy with that situation,” Belcher said, because the issues members care about have become politicized. “We don’t like having the situation where our members are the fodder for political battles.”

Again taking the lead from its national parent, Belcher said the local union and the SEIU “want to engage our Republican members.”

What the union has to give is influence over its nearly 11,000 members, although it also listed $141,000 in campaign contributions to various organizations on its 2004 tax return.

Belcher said the bulk of that money was for member education. A lesser amount was spent on fliers the union sends out to voters on issues like health care, which may mention but do not endorse specific candidates, who increasingly run on Clean Election funds and can’t accept outside contributions.

Union members “think for themselves,” Belcher is quick to point out, but the union does let them know how their legislators vote and where the candidates stand on the issues.

What the union has to gain by paying more attention to Republicans is perhaps better outcomes should the balance of power shift in Augusta and an olive branch to disgruntled non-members, who now are being forced to pay a negotiating fee to the MSEA. Under the contract signed by the Baldacci administration, workers have to pay the so-called fair share fee or lose their state jobs.

Daniel Locke, who works for the Department of Conservation, is one of the leaders in a suit against the MSEA over the negotiating fee, which is set at $4.50 a week or half the regular membership fee. That half is supposed to represent the cost of negotiating contracts and not what’s used on partisan politics.

While the fee has been upheld in a series of court cases, a final appeal is being filed this week. Locke said he won’t give up the fight no matter what happens in court.

“I’ve assured my family that I’m not going to lose my job over this matter,” Locke said, but “I will be a thorn in their side until the day I retire.” And, that, he said, is 16 or 17 years from now.

What irks Locke, who usually votes Republican, is being forced to give money to an organization that always backs Democrats. “They claim they are separating the funds as far as political use, but I think it’s highly unlikely that they can truly separate it.”

Locke said most of the blame goes to Baldacci because his administration agreed to the fee in the contract.

“In some ways are argument is against the union, but in reality it’s even more against the governor. He allowed it to happen,” Locke said.

Member benefits

While the fair-share fee has been contentious and even sparked a protest march to the governor’s mansion earlier this month, it is also making the union money and boosting membership.

Belcher said some workers are deciding to become full members since they have to pay half the fee anyway.

Those fees go into a revenue pot that totaled more than $4.2 million, according to tax returns filed for 2004. Belcher said that virtually all the revenue comes from dues and fees.

The money pays for the MSEA office on State Street and its 30 or so employees. Belcher, who was the organization’s general counsel before he became director last year, earns a base pay of $82,000.

Along with mentoring volunteer union stewards in the field, negotiating contracts and settling disputes, the organization also monitors legislation and lobbies. Six staffers were registered as lobbyists this year.

Belcher said his overriding concern is to protect the jobs and benefits of his members.

“Our concern is that there’s enormous pressure to turn our entire society into a low-wage workforce the way that Wal-Mart is being run,” he said. Benefits, like pension and health care, are being cut in the private sector. “We’re constantly fighting the tide on that one.”

Dennis Fitzgibbons, head of Alpha One, admits he was skeptical about the union when it first approached his workers, who assist in people’s homes so they can live independently.

“It’s not about unions,” he said, but rather a concern that they not interfere with the way the program is set up, where the disabled and their families actually do the hiring of the personal assistants and direct what needs to be done.

“I found they were quite genuine in their approach to get a better living wage for people,” and helped get the legislation passed to raise personal assistants’ pay after eight years. “It worked, which is the most important thing,” he said.