BIDDEFORD — Cari Cote of Biddeford, a child support enforcement agent, has worked for the Maine Department of Health and Human Services for eight years.
“The first four years were wonderful,” she said. “I was welcomed, we had good training and a good staff.”
The last four years haven’t gone as well, said Cote.
For more than four years, state employees who belong to the Maine State Employees Association, or MSEA, have gone without wage increases.
In addition, the amount employees pay for their health insurance and pension plan has increased.
Cote said she takes home less pay now than before.
“I’m only 34, I was hoping to retire with the state,” she said. “But people my age are probably looking for work elsewhere.”
The lack of raises has also had a negative impact on recruitment and retention of state workers, said Cote.
“The quality of work is really struggling,” she said, because employees are spending more time training new workers and there is more work to do with fewer people to do it.
On Wednesday, Cote was one of hundreds across the state picketing in protest of the LePage administration’s refusal to negotiate regarding wage increases for the more than 10,000 employees who work for the state and are represented by the MSEA.
State employees have gone 4 1/2 years without raises, said Alec Maybarduk, who works for the union.
Maybarduk and Cote were among about a dozen picketers who spent their lunch break at the Five Points intersection in Biddeford Wednesday. The majority of those protesting in Biddeford were among the more than 100 state employees who work at the DHHS office on Graham Street.
According to Maybarduk, because state negotiators are refusing to bargain regarding pay raises, employees could go another two years without raises.
“These people really need to get a raise,” said Virginia Hebert of Saco, a retired state employee who was also on the picket line. “State employees work so hard and get so little.”
Because of the troubled economy, the union decided not to ask for pay raises for employees when contract negotiations began in April 2011, said Tom Farkas, who also works for the union.
The MSEA would now like to negotiate for raises, for a contract to begin at the start of the new fiscal year on July 1. Workers were picketing, said Farkas, because of the LePage administration’s refusal to do so.
Cynthia Montgomery, the chief counsel for the state Office of Employee Relations, has a different take on the issue. She said the administration is refusing to negotiate on pay raises because raises weren’t requested in the contract that ended in 2011.
“The state’s position is we have to wrap up this contract first,” said Montgomery.
She noted that employee contracts could last up to three years.
“We have plenty of time to reach an agreement on a contract ending June 30, 2014,” said Montgomery.
Once that contract is settled, she said, the union could propose pay raises for a new agreement.
— Staff Writer Dina Mendros can be contacted at 282-1535, Ext. 324 or dmendros@journaltribune.com.
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