Searches from this page will limit the search to the name you enter (the employer, the bargaining agent or the complainant) or the case number. The search will only look in the contents of the file's title, which is the somewhat shortened version of the case name, along with the case number. The title of any html document is visible in the very top band on your browser. It is also the highlighted case name seen in the results of any query from the MLRB search page.
The titles of the case files include the common abbreviations used for the unions involved. In an effort to make the process for searching by party as useful as possible, no periods were used in these abbreviations and MEA was used even for those older cases when the Maine Education Association was known as the MTA.
The abbreviations used are MSEA, MEA, AFSCME, AFT, IBEW, IAFF, FOP, UPIU, IAMAW, AFUM, COLT, NCEU, and UMPSA.
MSAD 99 is the format for school administrative districts. Note No # or No. is used in the title. Additional formats are RSU, AOS, and SAU.
This system is not perfect. For example, a search for MSAD 24 will give all cases in which MSAD 24 is a named party, but may also bring up a case involving some other MSAD that has 24 in the case number, like 83-24. In addition, a search by party name will not necessarily bring up the court decisions for cases appealed, but those appeals are accessible through the board decision itself.
Unfortunately, it does not appear that there is any way to stack these search requests in order to limit the cases involving a particular party to those cases with a particular search term or phrase in the body of the decision. Alas.