LEWISTON- Yesterday, Speaker Fecteau attended the 16th Annual Workers Memorial/May Day Dinner where he was presented with the Western Maine Labor Council's Frances Perkins Award. May Day, also known as International Workers' Day, is considered a moment to celebrate working-class contributions as they have rallied for better labor rights, immigration overhauls, and other causes around social and economic equality.
The award is named after Frances Perkins, the longest serving U.S. Secretary of Labor and the first woman appointed to the U.S. Cabinet. She worked successfully to include the Labor movement in President Franklin D. Roosevelts New Deal. The award is given each year to an individual who has improved the lives of workers through public service or policy.
Throughout his Legislative service, Fecteau has championed efforts to rebuild the Maine Department of Labor, including through a bill to introduce a peer navigator program to help laid-off Mainers access unemployment benefits and new positions. He has fought back against attempts to roll back voter-approved minimum wage increases and worked to eliminate Maines sub-minimum wage for persons with disabilities. He has supported earned paid leave efforts and fought for critical needs of Maines workforce attainable housing and high-quality, affordable child care. In his career outside the Maine Legislature, Fecteau is a union member of CWA Local 2336.
From the Great Resignation and ' Striketober, the past year has been called the year of the worker. The year was marked by public demands for safe working conditions and fair pay, unionization efforts, and worker mobilization.
This Legislative Session, Fecteau sponsored LD 1816 to establish a new Labor and Community Education Center at the University of Southern Maine. It will establish a new labor center at the University of Southern Maine and will enable the Bureau of Labor Education at the University of Maine to expand its valuable work in labor studies. The labor education center at USM will offer labor education for students, unions and the community at large. It will host regular trainings and workshops, policy seminars, working class oral history projects, conferences, symposia, speakers and films that address issues of concern to Maine's working people such as labor law and workers rights, discrimination, labor history, quality of work life and more.
"This week, we remember the sacrifices workers have made and look back at the great strides made by organized labor to make our workplaces better. There is inspiring organizing taking place in Maine today. This year, we saw nurses organize at Maine Med and employees at Portland Museum of Art form their first union. Right now, Bates College employees are making the choice to form a collective voice to advocate for themselves and students. Like you, I believe all workers should have the right to organize free from intimidation," said Speaker Fecteau. "I'm honored to receive this award named after the great Frances Perkins, the daughter of Mainers who was an architect of the New Deal."
In the 1960s, Fecteau's grandparents immigrated to Biddeford from Packington, QC to work in Biddeford's unionized textile mills. He has spoken about the culture of union organizing in Biddeford and Lewiston's mills, as well as the difficult history of assimilation experienced by immigrants, notably, the loss of the French language amongst his generation.
Photo: Speaker Ryan Fecteau of Biddeford receives Frances Perkins Award at 16th annual Western Maine Labor Council May Day/International Workers Day event. Matt Schlobohm, Executive Director of the Maine AFL-CIO presents the award.
Contact:
Jenna Howard (Fecteau), 207-214-3185