An Act To Amend State Employees' Bargaining Agents' Election Contributions
Be it enacted by the People of the State of Maine as follows:
Sec. 1. 26 MRSA §979-F, sub-§3 is enacted to read:
3. Political contribution. Upon the written request of 10% of the members of a bargaining unit made to the executive director of the board, a bargaining agent under this chapter shall conduct by secret ballot within that bargaining unit a poll of political party affiliation of the members of the unit. The results of the poll must be made public and the bargaining agent shall ensure that monetary contributions made by the agent to political parties, to political action committees whose principal officers or primary fund-raisers or decision makers are political candidates or political officeholders and to the campaigns of political candidates are made in such a way that the total percentage of money given to a candidate or candidates from each political party is the same as the percentage of members of that bargaining unit that indicated an affiliation with that political party. The percentage of the monetary contributions from members of a bargaining unit who indicated no political party affiliation must be divided among the political parties in the same percentage as the political party affiliation of the bargaining unit.
summary
This bill requires any labor organization that represents state employees to make political contributions based on political party in the same percentages as the members of a bargaining unit indicate by secret ballot their party affiliations. For those members who do not indicate any affiliation to a political party the contribution must be divided to reflect the percentages of party affiliation in the bargaining unit. The trigger for the poll by secret ballot is a written request made by 10% of the members of a bargaining unit made to the Executive Director of the Maine Labor Relations Board.