Scontras Center

Thank you to everyone who came out to our workshop on getting more members involved in your union! We had great conversations that we hope to continue more of! Everyone brought great ideas and energy to the discussion!! ✊✊

Last week, the Scontras Center gave a labor history walking tour of S**o and Biddeford to a Casco Bay High School class. We covered topics from the 1841 York Manufacturing Company Strike, how textile mills were connected to slavery, mill girls, and more! Students also explored how workers in these mills organized for dignity and fair conditions—many of them still young teenagers.

Almost every labor organization goes through a stage when it seems that “nobody wants to do anything.” This may seem insurmountable, but members’ apathy often results from confusion rather than disinterest. In this interactive workshop, we will explore tools such as organizational analysis, relationship building, and action planning. Participants will create a customizable toolkit to reclaim your collective voice, increase membership participation, and build the structural power necessary to win better contracts and respect on the job. Lunch provided!

When: Saturday, May 16th 10am-2pm

Where: Plumbers and Pipefitters Hall, 21 Gabriel Drive, Augusta, ME 04330

Please note, this event is in person only. Register here: https://bit.ly/GettingMembersInvolved26

Thank you to Anna from the Franco-American Collection for visiting our Maine Labor History course to share unique archival materials from the Lewiston-Auburn labor movement. Students had the opportunity to engage directly with primary sources and explore the history of organizing in one of Maine’s most important industrial regions.

Enmax, Iberdrola, & the Globalization of Maine’s Power Industry

2:00 - 3:30 p.m., Friday, April 10, 2026

Harmon Room, 1st Floor in Chadbourne Hall, UMaine & on Zoom

Dr. Stefano Tijerina, Senior Lecturer at the Maine Business School, will address the ongoing dialog over the ownership of Maine's electric grid, where residents pay some of the highest rates for electricity in the nation. His talk explores how foreign companies like ENMAX and Iberdrola came to play central roles in Maine’s power system and the impact of such foreign/private ownership of power distribution on workers and communities.

Register at https://tinyurl.com/spotlight06

Coffee and delicious refreshments!

We really hope to see you there!

Join us for a guest lecture with economist Oak McCoy, PhD (University of New England), presented as part of a University of Southern Maine economics course. In this guest lecture, "Jobs, Climate, and Crisis: Rethinking Macroeconomic Policy", McCoy will explore how lessons from the Great Depression can inform today’s economic policies to address the intersecting challenges of climate change, inequality, and economic instability.

When: Thursday, April 9th, 12:30-1:45pm
Where: Payson Smith Hall, Room 201, 96 Falmouth Street, Portland, ME 04103

Dan Nickerson, longtime hand shoe sewer, visited our Maine Labor History class to discuss the process of shoemaking, his experiences in a shoe factory, and the effects of deindustrialization on shoe making. Students had the opportunity to connect firsthand accounts to the broader history of Maine’s once-thriving shoe industry that saw many important labor battles.

Linda Deane and Randy Berry talking about the 1987 International Paper Strike in Jay, Maine for our Maine Labor History course. ✊

Students in our Maine Labor History course visited the Osher Map Library on Saturday to explore how maps can help us understand the state’s labor and industrial past. Guided by Libby Bischof, we examined maps that reveal Maine’s working waterfronts, mills, and transportation networks through time. 🗺️🌎

Scontras Center Releases Report "The State of the Unions: Organized Labor in Maine, 2022-2024"

The report features key findings, such as:

• Maine’s public-sector unionization rate is 41.1%, considerably higher than the 2022-2024 national average of 33.6%.

• The industries with the highest rates of unionization are public administration, transportation and utilities, and educational services.

• Some of Maine’s least-unionized industries, health services, wholesale and retail trade, educational services, and leisure and hospitality, employ more than half of all workers in the state.

• Maine union members make $6.00 an hour more than non-members on average.

and more!

Read and download report here: https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/laborcntr_pub/1/