The state of Maine and the Maine State Employees Association, the private union representing many state employees, recently began to negotiate new collective bargaining agreements for those expiring on June 30.

While the state budget negotiations have been on the front page of many newspapers, these negotiations have been ongoing and will also greatly affect the taxpayers of Maine.

On June16, without prior notice and days before the deadline for proposals, the MSEA proposed a two-year contract extension. It presented this as a “one time opportunity” to save the expense of further negotiations. It gave the state less than 24 hours to take it or leave it. After repeated requests by the state for more time, the private union offered just two business days to accept or reject the proposal.

The state did agree to extend the existing contract, but for only one year, not two. We wanted to save the cost to the taxpayers of further negotiations as well; however, it is irresponsible to wait two full years to fix built-in structural costs in current contracts.

It seems clear that the MSEA did not really want to save the cost of negotiations because it rejected the one-year extension. Apparently the organization is not interested in helping to fix the structural costs either, because it rejected the state’s alternative two-year proposal that would have significantly narrowed the scope of bargaining.

The MSEA rejected the state’s two-year proposal and, minutes later, paid union officials issued a press release claiming that the state “appear(ed) to be going out of (its) way … to take away rights of Maine workers.” The union also said our changes could hurt the ability of workers to perform their jobs.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

None of the state’s proposals would impact the ability of employees to perform their jobs safely and efficiently.

Instead, the state’s fiscally responsible proposals address unnecessary and excessive costs that should be eliminated from the contract sooner rather than later.

What are these structural costs that the MSEA wishes to sweep under the rug?

One may shock people. The state, with the public’s tax money, is currently paying a monthly telephone subsidy of $9 toward the cost of land-line telephones for some 1,800 state employees. This subsidy started in 1975 at $5 and has grown to $9. Many of these employees are also provided cell phones; others are rarely if ever called at home. The annual cost to taxpayers is roughly $190,000 per year, $380,000 over the two years of the extension requested by the MSEA.

One should ask how many people’s annual taxes would need to be combined together in order to equal this large amount.

Another of our proposals involves the cost to the taxpayer of paying employees wages while they attend private MSEA business meetings and conventions — another $90,000 per year ($180,000 for a two-year period). The state’s proposal would allow employees leave time to attend these activities during the work day, but the MSEA could pay its members for what is entirely private union organization business.

It appears MSEA can afford it. With an approximate budget of $5.4 million, 2010 financial statements indicate the union had a $1.5 million surplus last year. That money was sent to its international union office in Washington, D.C. Another $2 million was spent on lobbying and political activities, and salaries and benefits for union leaders. Only $1.4 million was spent on collective bargaining representing employees.  

Remember that the vast majority of those funds originated from taxpayers.

One of the state’s non-cost policy items in the negotiations was to eliminate fees that prior legislation has forced people to pay into the union when they take a state job. That affects up to 3,000 employees who do not want to pay the fees.

We do not see this as an “attack on workers.” This proposal would simply reestablish the relationship the state had with the MSEA prior to the last administration — when state employees were not required to pay these fees in order to get and keep a job with the state and when Maine was not a bill collector for the private union when employees did not authorize the payment.

It is not the intent of state management to devalue the good work of state employees during these negotiations.

We must concern ourselves, however, with balancing the interests of employees with the interests of taxpayers. For years many Maine taxpayers, not just those employed by the state, have not had salary increases, have had to accept cuts in benefits, and experienced significant losses in their retirement accounts.

It is time to remember that the people of Maine work hard at their jobs to pay their taxes, and they expect state management to cut unnecessary spending at every possible turn.

It would be irresponsible for the state to agree at this point to two more years of unnecessary and excessive cost items in the current contracts.

That is our focus and that is our mission.

John McGough is currently chief of staff in the governor’s office and was previously the director of human resources for South Portland.