AUGUSTA (AP) – The state mediator who worked to unite Maine’s feuding blueberry growers and processors has issued an ultimatum: accept his terms by Thursday evening or he’ll quit.

David Bustin of the Maine Labor Relations Board warned Wednesday that the parties will take their chances in court if they reject his proposal to settle a price-fixing lawsuit.

“If they don’t accept my recommendations by tomorrow, then I’m out of it,” he said during a news conference.

Three blueberry processors have said that a $56 million verdict could send them into bankruptcy, leaving growers with no local buyers. Processors have appealed to the state supreme court.

Bustin said he had no choice but to resort to the one-day deadline, a tactic he said he has not used in a decade as a mediator.

“This is an unusual thing for a mediator to do, but this is an unusual and complex case,” Bustin said. “An agreement between the parties is far preferable to a decision forced by the courts.”

Bustin declined to discuss details of his proposal to resolve the dispute between blueberry growers, who won their price-fixing lawsuit last year, and the state’s three major blueberry processors.

The processors, who have appealed, are scheduled to ask the Maine Supreme Judicial Court on Friday to dissolve attachments on company assets.

Bustin said his plan includes a cash award of less than the $18.68 million a Knox County Superior Court jury decided the processors underpaid growers from 1996 to 1999. Damage awards are automatically tripled to $56 million because the civil case involved antitrust issues.

The amounts to be paid by the processors would depend on their size, ability to pay and the amount of blueberries they processed in the past, he said. The proposal also contains a compromised way to establish prices for blueberry farmers, who had claimed they were underpaid, he said.

The three processors, Jasper Wyman & Son of Milbridge, Cherryfield Foods Inc. and Allen’s Blueberry Freezer of Ellsworth, together handle about 95 percent of Maine’s blueberries each year.

The 2003 blueberry harvest amounted to 80 million pounds of berries with a value of $70 million.

Bustin said he believes the parties are much closer to an agreement than when they began discussions. If both sides do not sign off on his proposal by 5 p.m. Thursday, he will resign as mediator.

Bustin urged the two sides to try to reach an agreement instead of forcing the courts to decide the case.

State Agriculture Commissioner Robert Spear, who also spoke at the news conference, agreed.

“We’re so close I feel we have to do all we can in the next 24 hours to settle this,” Spear said. “If they go to court, I feel there’s going to be one big winner and one big loser.”

Bustin said he hopes both the blueberry growers and the processors remember the families whose incomes depend on a resolution to the dispute.

“There is a constituency out there beyond the parties at the table, people whose livelihoods are at stake,” he said. “They have a responsibility to reach a settlement as soon as possible.”

AP-ES-02-11-04 1843EST