Lobstermen in Maine celebrated the formation of their new union, the Maine Lobstermen’s Union, at a labor breakfast in Portland on Labor Day.

So far the union has organized 600 of the 4,288 lobstermen counted by the state in 2012, with 240 of them paying dues.

The idea of a union first circulated among the lobstermen late last year after a glut of lobster that summer drove prices down to between $2 and $2.50 a pound, a 40-year low.

The increasing costs of bait, fuel and complying with state and federal regulations didn’t help. Neither did the prospect of global warming, which could change the industry forever.

Pushed to the limit, lobsterman Magnus Lane spoke with union organizers about forming a union, and it wasn’t long before the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers took him up on it.

It’s been a challenge: Maine’s lobstermen are owner-operators known for their fierce independence and for the competition among them that sometimes turns ugly. Even Rocky Alley, now the union’s president, said he was skeptical at first.

“You’ve got to be joking,” he told the organizer who first contacted him.

But Alley — like many others who shared his initial wariness — has been converted and is optimistic that the new union is the way forward for the state’s lobstermen.

“This is how we’re going to take back the industry that’s been taken from us,” he said at the labor breakfast.

The New York Times, Oct. 20
Maine Insights, Sept. 27