Remember a time when organized labor was stronger? When a broader, more stable middle class existed and wages were good enough to support far more families, lifting not just those in unions but most others along with them? When’s the last time we had a clear choice to vote for working people in Maine on the national level?

Janet Mills has been a strong governor in many ways, certainly protecting us well through COVID and speaking up to President Trump. However, allegations of bad-faith bargaining have again been filed against Mills in November of this year, the seventh time in five years.

She vetoed the farmworker minimum wage bill in 2024 and vetoed the bill that gave farmworkers protection from retaliation for discussing working conditions, vetoed the teacher planning and preparation rights bill in 2019 and weakened the 2019 paid time off bill protecting employees from retaliation. These are just a few examples of her actions that particularly affected farmworkers, public sector employees and workers seeking protection from employer retaliation. So how might she vote in the U.S. Senate?

Graham Platner’s platform is clearly pro-working people and pro-collective bargaining rights, while also protecting and promoting small business and anti-big business and billionaire money in our elections. Here’s a real chance to vote once again for labor: those who do the work that builds, services and maintains our communities and our country.

Why not vote for these values while we have the chance?

Betty Robinson
Topsham