Gov. Paul LePage (Photo credit: MaineDOE)

Maine’s Governor just sent a harsh message to the State’s labor force by vetoing a bill to study how Workers Compensation can be used to help alleviate the suffering of employees deeply impacted by workplace bullying. The Bangor Daily News quotes Governor LePage: “I cannot understand what additional policy recommendations could come forward from this study.” Ummmm, that’s the purpose of a study. Fingers croxx’d his veto will be overturned but historically that’s a slim chance. Both New Jersey & Wisconsin have shown that Workers Comp have the potential to become useful tools in the fight to prevent and offer help to dealing with the ramifications of  psychological harassment.

House Democratic leader Seth Berry, D-Bowdoinham, said the veto was part of a pattern of LePage “obstructing the good bipartisan work taking place in the Legislature.”

“This bill won the unanimous support of the committee,” said Berry in a prepared statement. “Members worked in a bipartisan manner to tackle the problem of bullying in the workplace.”

Each chamber of the Legislature would have to achieve a two-thirds vote to override a gubernatorial veto. None of LePage’s eight vetoes so far this session has been overturned. (Bangor Daily News)

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• LePage vetoes bills to study workplace bullying, train students to prevent heart attacks (bangordailynews.com)
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