AUGUSTA — Congress may have come to a deal to end the 16-day partial federal government shutdown and avoid a scenario that could have led to a national default, but the “civil emergency” declared last week by Gov. Paul LePage is still in effect.
The governor’s emergency authority is “still being used as an administrative tool” in an effort to ensure an orderly transition back to normal government operations, said LePage spokeswoman Adrienne Bennett on Thursday morning.
The Maine State Employees Association, the largest union representing state workers, though, said continuing the state of emergency is unnecessary.
About 100 state employees were laid off during the shutdown because their salaries were funded by federal dollars that had stopped flowing from Washington. LePage has said he declared the civil emergency in an attempt to aid state workers by circumventing a union contract that did not anticipate a government shutdown.
For example, the governor waived the work-search requirement for laid-off state workers, so they could receive unemployment benefits without having to look for — and possibly accept — a new job. LePage said he wanted all laid-off state workers to return to their posts when the shutdown ended.
Bennett said the continuation of the civil emergency is still necessary because things wouldn’t go back to normal immediately.
“We don’t automatically have the ability to draw down (federal) funds,” she said. “We need to be certain we can make these (laid-off) employees whole, that they get any benefits they’re entitled to.”
But Chris Quint, executive director of the MSEA, says maintaining a state of emergency now is “perplexing and confusing.”
Both sides say their goal is to get everything back to normal, a return to the state government as it was before the shutdown, with all employees back in their original positions. The sticking point is whether the union’s current collective bargaining agreements will facilitate that return to normalcy, as the union says it will, or whether a separate agreement must be struck, as the administration claims.
Part of the deal struck Wednesday night by Congress includes a provision to provide full back pay to state employees displaced by the shutdown, and reimburses states for expenses incurred during the shutdown that would normally have been paid by the federal government.
Quint said that’s reason enough to end the civil emergency. The union’s contract includes provisions for recalling laid-off workers to their original positions, he said.
“This is why we have a collective bargaining agreement,” he said. “Our collective bargaining agreement allows people to return to their job. You don’t need a civil emergency declaration to do that. The federal government didn’t need a civil emergency and their workers are back at work today.”
Quint said that 55 workers in the Department of Health and Human Services who were laid off because of the shutdown were already back at work Thursday. He said those workers being back on the clock shows the state of emergency is no longer necessary.
Another question involves the practice of “bumping,” a provision in the union contract that allows state employees with seniority to revert back to a position they held earlier in their career rather than being laid off, which causes the person currently holding that position to be “bumped” out of a job, taking the layoff instead.
It gets complicated when such displacement cascades — if senior employees bumps the person under them, who bumps the person under them, and so forth. Quint said the union’s current contract can address displacement.
“There has been some bumping, but it’s been very minimal,” he said. “There is language in our collective bargaining agreement, which the governor and we agreed to this year, that establishes a process for recall rights.”
The union and the governor’s administration are scheduled to continue meeting Thursday to try to hash out an agreement. Bennett said she hoped negotiations would continue in good faith.
“It would leave a sour taste in our mouths if the union were to walk away,” she said. “Our priority is to ensure that employees are taken care of.”
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