Courtesy / Maine AFL-CIO
Nurses from Maine Medical Center rallied on the steps of Portland City Hall on Saturday in support of organized labor and a recent unionizing victory.
Updated: May 3, 2021
Shaw's truckers, mechanics walk off the job as unions celebrate recent wins in Maine
Courtesy / Teamsters Local 340
Shaw's workers picket outside the company's truck maintenance facility in Scarborough on Monday morning.
By William Hall
Just days after workers at two Portland employers voted to unionize, truck drivers and mechanics for Shaw’s Supermarkets in Maine have gone on strike.
About 80 members of Teamsters Local Union No. 340 in South Portland walked off the job early Monday at a Shaw’s distribution center in Wells and a maintenance shop in Scarborough.
The members work for Clifford W. Perham Inc., a trucking subsidiary of Shaw’s. The Teamsters have been without a contract there since last August, according to the union, which was seeking better pay, retirement contributions and health coverage.
But Shaw’s parent Albertsons Cos. Inc. (NYSE: ACI) hasn’t been at the bargaining table since February, when a labor negotiator for the corporation stopped working, the local’s business agent, Joe Piccone, told Mainebiz Monday.
“[Albertsons] claims they have a great offer for us, but they don’t even have a representative,” he said by phone from the Scarborough picket line. “This is their M.O., this is how they treat people. So we finally decided to pull the plug.”
Perham employed 67 drivers in Wells and 13 mechanics in Scarborough during 2018, when Local 340 began representing the workers, according to the National Labor Relations Board. Piccone said 100% of the members working for Perham have pledged to strike, and there were about a dozen picketing already in Scarborough.
The drivers and mechanics are responsible for getting groceries to 122 Shaw’s and Star Market stores in Maine and New England, he added. Local 340 represents nearly 4,000 members in bargaining units across the state, including municipal employees, police, firefighters and freight workers.
Attempts to reach Albertsons for comment were not immediately successful. The Idaho-based company is the second-largest supermarket chain in North America, with over 2,200 stores.
The strike comes as organized labor supporters celebrate two new union shops in Maine
Last Thursday, a month-long election concluded allowing nurses at Maine Medical Center to be represented as part of the Maine State Nurses Association and National Nurses United. On April 22 employees of the Portland Museum of Art elected to organize under the Technical, Office and Professional Union, Local 2110 of the United Automobile Workers.
On Saturday, the Maine AFL-CIO, with the state chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America and the Southern Maine Workers’ Center, held rallies in Augusta, Bangor and Portland to celebrate the victories and recognize International Workers’ Day, May 1.
The organizers also called on Maine’s congressional delegation to support the federal Protect the Right to Organize bill now pending. If passed, the omnibus legislation would end so-called “right to work” open shop laws, permit solidarity strikes and make other changes in labor law.
Andrew Coronado, a local brewer who led an unsuccessful union drive at Rising Tide Brewing Co. in Portland, said at the rally there: "Passing the PRO Act will be only a first demand. It will be the kind of big structural change that helps reinforce the power of rank-and-file workers, by legalizing secondary strikes, weakening management and their union-busting firms, and guaranteeing workers our right to organize.”
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