Name changer
For the most part the furor over Gov. LePage’s redecorating plans at the Department of Labor has centered on the 36-foot long mural depicting several key moments in Maine’s worker history.
But the governor’s decision to rename department committee rooms currently carrying the monikers of several prominent labor figures is also getting some attention.
Two rooms are named after labor heavyweights, Frances Perkins and Cesar Chavez. Perkins was the labor secretary under President Franklin D. Roosevelt and considered the driving force behind Social Security, unemployment insurance, the right of workers to unionize, the minimum wage and the 40-hour workweek.
Perkins also has ties to Maine.
In a column published Wednesday Robert Reich, the former labor secretary under President Bill Clinton, noted that the federal labor building in Washington D.C. is named after Perkins.
There are several other places carrying her namesake, including a public library in Worcester, Mass. and a school in New York.
Chavez is more ubiquitous.
At least 46 K-12 schools in 13 states are named after the farmer turned civil rights and labor activist, according to a few Google searches.
Additionally, at least 11 states have Cesar Chavez streets. The city of Dallas last year added a Cesar Chavez Boulevard, but not before Mayor Tom Leppert resisted the moniker because he wasn’t sure it was right for redevelopment efforts there.
Austin City Hall is located on Cesar Chavez Street, a few blocks from Silicon Labs, Iron Works BBQ, the Four Seasons hotel and the city’s convention center.
There are 11 parks named Cesar Chavez, most in California, along with at least six libraries elsewhere.
There’s also Cesar Chavez, Texas. It’s a town in south Texas.
Back in Maine, some of the other committee rooms in the labor department have a more local flavor.
Marion Martin was the state’s former labor commissioner from 1947 to 1972 and served under eight Republican governors and two Democrats.
William Looney was a Republican state senator from Portland. According to the plaque outside of Looney’s conference room, the lawmaker spearheaded reforms in child labor laws in 1887, including a bill that prohibited workers under 18 from working more than 10-hour days.
Manufacturers opposed the change, but Looney won. He later became the state’s labor chief.
In 1854 Sarah Wilson was a textile worker at Bates Mill No. 1 in Lewiston. According to Wilson’s plaque, she was one of thousands of “mill girls” who traveled from farms and small communities throughout New England and Canada to work in textile mills.
Wilson was among the employees at Bates Mill No. 1 and Lincoln Mill that tried to reduce their workday from 15 hours to 11 hours by staging a walkout in the streets of Lewiston in 1854.
Charles Scontras is a labor historian at the University of Maine. He advised Judy Taylor on the disputed mural. His name is on one of the committee rooms. He’s also the uncle of Dean Scontras, a former Republican congressional candidate.
The Able ME room is named after a program in the labor department, while the Rose Schneiderman Room is named after the labor activist who worked on FDR’s New Deal.
A LePage spokesman has said the governor wants to rename the rooms after “counties and mountains or something.”
The administration is expected to announce the destination of the mural on Friday.
