PHOTO: Josh Bernier, President of USW 1247
In the 19th century, one of the key demands of the labor movement was for shorter work days. In the 1830s and 40s, union organizer Seth Luther ignited crowds of workers with his fiery speeches, sparking strikes up and down the Maine coast for the 10-hour day. Speaking before Maine shipbuilders and mill workers he declared they will “no longer be mere slaves to inhuman, insatiable and unpitying avarice.”
“We have been too long subjected to the odious, cruel, unjust, and tyrannical system which compels the operative mechanic to exhaust his physical and mental powers by excessive toil, until he has no desire but to eat and sleep, and in many cases he has no power to do either from extreme debility!” Luther roared.
But despite passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 requiring employers to pay overtime beyond 40 hours, laws still allow employers to force people to work up to 80 hours per week, making a mockery of the old labor slogan "Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest and eight hours for what you will."
Mandatory overtime is very common in the paper industry these days, but a new generation of union members are fighting back. Next spring, USW locals at the Twin Rivers paper mill in Madawaska will start bargaining a new contract and boosting employee recruitment by raising wages to address the mandatory overtime problem will be a top priority.
“Right now we have members who have to work 18 hours until 11pm and then go home and be expected to get enough rest to return to work at 5am for another 12-hour shift,” said Josh Bernier, President of USW 1247. “In fact, I’ve seen multiple employees this summer work three 18-hour shifts in a row because there aren’t replacements to fill in and no one wants to come in because they’re exhausted. The overtime money doesn’t matter. Even people who struggle financially are just like, ‘no, it’s not worth it.’”
Members of the USW locals at the Madawaska mill nearly went on strike in 2019 during the last round of contract bargaining because the workers were fed up with being overworked. As a compromise, the company proposed incentives to cover for workers who have to take time off. But it simply hasn’t hired enough employees to keep the mill running without workers taking a lot of overtime. Bernier says that while the company may not call it “mandatory overtime,” his members are being forced to cover extra shifts for their coworkers so that others will cover for them when they need to take time off.
The reason so many paper companies use mandatory overtime, says USW labor rep Mike Higgins, stems from the paper industry’s adoption in the 1990s of “lean manufacturing,” a method to streamline production and eliminate so-called “non-value” jobs, usually through attrition.
“Over time, lean manufacturing has eliminated a lot of the flexibility that companies had when people either called in sick or used vacation time. It’s created an atmosphere where they don’t have enough people to train to do jobs above them,” said Higgins. “So if an operator calls out sick and nobody’s there to promote, that person is forced to come into work because he’s the senior-most person.”
The former owner of the mill also laid off 100 workers during the last recession in 2009. Union leaders say morale on factory floor is at an all time low after the stress of working through the pandemic compounded by years of forced overtime, lay offs, pay cuts and other concessions to keep the mill competitive.
Former USW 291 President David Hebert noted that at one point during the pandemic, 28 workers out of a total of 368 union members at the mill were out with COVID at the same time, which prevented a lot of members from being able to take scheduled vacations.
“We were essential through the pandemic and we came into work every day. While some companies provided hazard pay, we didn’t get a penny,” he said. “We look at all of these other plants that were providing hazard pay and we were like ‘what are we, pieces of meat over here? We’re not robots.’”
All but one paper mill in Maine — Huhtamaki in Waterville — has the right to force employees into work on their days off. Often during routine scheduled maintenance shut downs, paper workers are required to work even longer, often 30 to 40 hours straight in a row with no days off. According to Higgins, all of the old time paper workers who were willing to work 70 or 80 hours a week are retiring now and a new generation of younger workers wants more time to relax and spend time with their families.
“A lot of young people in here saw their moms and dads work those hours and they don’t want to be that person,” he said. “They’re having trouble finding anyone to work in those mills up there because no one wants to sell their soul to that company anymore. Everybody in that community knows that if you go to work at Twin Rivers, yeah you’re going to get paid well and provide for your family, but you’re going to be working your ass off.”
Bernier said some of his members were nervous about pushing the company too hard during the last round of negotiations, especially after it nearly went bankrupt under the previous owner before it was sold in 2013, but after making so many sacrifices, he said even those members have had enough.
“There’s a lot of simmering resentment and I think it’s going to come to the surface in negotiations,” said Hebert. “The members on the floor right now are like ‘Let’s go. Bring it on. We’re ready to battle.’’