During the first regular session of the 119th Maine Legislature, lawmakers dealt with a wide range of workplace issues and managed to enact at least three new laws with important implications for Maine employers.  
Semi-Monthly Wage Payment. Maine's weekly wage payment statute, originally passed early in this century to ensure that hourly workers would receive wages according to a regular schedule, was repealed and replaced with a law requiring that all Maine employers pay non-salaried employees "at least semi-monthly," with pay periods not to exceed sixteen days. Effective September 18, 1999, all wages must be paid on an established day or date and at regular intervals known to every employee. Any payment interval shorter than the maximum allowed cannot be lengthened without thirty days' written notice to the affected employees.

Before the repeal, the weekly wage payment requirement applied only to employers in certain industries, which created confusion among many employers, especially those in the retail and food service industries. The new law broadens the scope of the wage payment rules to all employers and clarifies the conditions under which employees can seek remedies for unpaid wages.
Victim's Workplace Leave. Maine became the first state in the country to mandate that employers give workers unpaid leave if they need medical treatment for injuries related to violent crime or if they must appear in court or seek outside services to ensure their protection from future violence. The Act to Protect Victims of Crime in the Workplace was widely endorsed by organized labor, the Maine Prosecutors Association, the Maine Women's Lobby and the Cumberland County Sheriff's Department. Some small-business groups, wary of the measure's potential impacts on employers, opposed it.  

   
Under the law, all employers, regardless of the size of their workforce, must grant "reasonable and necessary leave from work, with or without pay, for an employee to prepare for and attend court proceedings; receive medical treatment; or obtain necessary services to remedy a crisis caused by domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking." The law does not require leave that is "impractical, unreasonable or unnecessary" based on the facts known at the time by the employer. Employers that can prove that granting leave to a victim would pose an undue burden are excepted from the requirement, and no employer is required to provide leave "not requested within a reasonable time under the circumstances." 
Broadcast Non-competition Agreements. After intense lobbying by the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, the Legislature approved without a roll call vote a law restricting Maine's television and radio stations from binding their employees to non-competition agreements that prevent employees from working for competitors within the state for a fixed period after they have left their former positions.

The new law creates a presumption of unenforceability for any broadcasting industry contract that requires an employee or prospective employee to refrain from obtaining employment in a specified geographic area for a specified period following expiration of the contract, or upon termination of employment without fault of the employee. Contracts covering sales representatives employed by radio or television stations are excluded from coverage; in addition, the law does not appear to cover employees whose contracts are terminated for cause.