AUGUSTA — Lawmakers battling over the fate of the 123-year-old Labor Committee settled Wednesday on a compromise that likely will allow Republicans to merge the panel with one that traditionally handled business matters.

The Legislature’s Rules Committee voted unanimously to create the Labor, Commerce, Research and Economic Development panel, essentially merging worker safety, compensation and union issues handled by the Labor Committee with an economic development committee.

The Labor Committee’s fate had been the buzz for weeks, as the new Republican majority’s effort to strike an early tone for governing clashed with labor advocates and Democrats, who originally described the plan as a political power play at the expense of organized labor and workers.

On Tuesday night, Republican leadership announced plans to merge the business development panel and the Labor Committee to create the Jobs Committee. By Wednesday evening, after several closed-door meetings between Democratic and Republican leaders, and much heated rhetoric, the panel had a new name and a new jurisdiction.

All existing labor matters are slated to remain in the new panel except those related to benefits and pensions for state and municipal employees. The latter will move to the Appropriations Committee.

Initially, labor advocates feared worker issues would be dispersed to other committees. Laura Harper of the Maine Women’s Lobby said the compromise alleviates some of her group’s fears about dissolving the labor panel.

Republican lawmakers said the move was part of an election mandate to streamline government, create jobs and make Maine more business friendly. They said the proposal would save money. They didn’t outline jurisdiction assignments until Wednesday night.

“Issues that involve businesses by (their) nature involve workers,” said House Speaker Robert Nutting, R-Oakland. “It makes sense to me, and the members of my caucus, to have those issues under one roof.”

Initially, Democrats and labor advocates had a much different view. They blasted the GOP for a plan that ran counter to the oft-repeated Republican slogan “people before politics.”

The private talks spoke to the divisiveness of the issue, as both sides scrambled to claim they were representing working people. The tone was set early, as labor advocates held a morning news conference in the Hall of Flags to say Republicans didn’t care about workers, just corporate interests.

Emery Deabay, a mill worker from Bucksport, said Republicans were telling ordinary workers that they “didn’t count.”

“They are telling us workers that we are the ones responsible for the economic troubles we face; we are the brakes that stop business development and we don’t count,” Deabay said. “From now on, they are saying, our issues and concerns will come after corporate greed, after business at any cost and after our need to put you in your place, on the bottom.”

Deabay said the Labor Committee was the only legislative panel that would adequately hear worker safety issues.

He said, “If you are a person that runs a cash register, you don’t count. If you are a person that waits on tables, you don’t count. If you are a person that works in a mill, you don’t count.”

After the news conference, the Maine Republican Party called on Democratic lawmakers to repudiate organized labor’s comments.

“Maine’s working people aren’t interested in labor union power grabs,” wrote Maine GOP Executive Director Christie-lee McNally. “They’re interested in preserving and creating good jobs for Maine.”

One lawmaker, Sen. Stan Gerzofsky, D-Brunswick, said the plan was tied to the new majority’s quest for more office space on the third floor of the State House.

“It’s about space for their staff,” said Gerzofsky, a member of the Labor Committee and Rules panel that debated the GOP proposal Wednesday.

Gerzofsky said the GOP proposal was akin to “lifting their leg on the working people of Maine.”

On Wednesday, workers had already removed the furniture from the Insurance and Financial Services Committee room. The panel is expected to move next door to the Cross Building in the space currently occupied by Labor.

Lance Dutson, House Speaker Nutting’s communications director, said the GOP plan was driven by a mandate to create jobs.

“There’s no jobs without business; there’s no business without workers,” Dutson said.

By the end of the day, both sides were extolling the benefits of the compromise.

“It was never the intent of any proposal to take away anyone’s voice,” said Senate Majority Leader Jonathan Courtney, R-York. “We worked until we got it right.”

The full Legislature is expected to vote Friday on creating the new committee.

smistler@sunjournal.com

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