Other Policy Issues

While MPPA focuses on the four policy areas above, we often participate in discussions of other policy areas as well, especially labor and transportation issues. A few examples include:

• In recent years MPPA has successfully opposed numerous bills to adopt strikebreaker provisions that would effectively prohibit employers from hiring replacement workers in the event of a strike.
• MPPA successfully advocated at the Legislature in 2010 for a bond to allow the State to purchase the rail line between Millinocket and Madawaska that would otherwise have been abandoned, causing financial difficulties for the mills that rely on rail transportation in northern Maine.
• MPPA has worked with Maine’s congressional delegation in support of federal legislation to increase the allowable weights of trucks on Maine’s interstate highways. A temporary increase has been adopted, but it expires in December 2010. MPPA is working to make this increase permanent.