Many thanks to Workers Center members who rallied in support of the 170 Barre teachers during their eleven day strike. We know that unionized firefighters, municipal employees, state employees, electrical workers, UVM and state college employees -- and of course many, many teachers and school support staff -- joined the picket lines, brought food and made contributions to the BEA strike fund.
Details of the settlement still await ratification by all parties, but we've heard that the terms are considered to be a very fair and respectful compromise.
Here at the Workers Center we made outreach calls and sent Action Alerts to support the Barre strike, as we do for every struggle where community support is needed. We were saddened to see that some of our subscribers expressed negative reactions to this strike and want to offer a perspective which may help place this in a broader context:
Most union negotiations now, for all workers, are fighting off concessions: Nearly every unionized worker must fight hard these days just to maintain health insurance benefits, fair wage structures and other job protections that they'd won long ago. The globalized economy is in a "race to the bottom" and pushing everyone down. The health insurance crisis is just one symptom of a economy that is punishing all working people, and rewarding only the corporations and those who profit from them. All workers want to fight off concessions... but only certain workers, with the strength of a powerful union and community support, can fight back against concessions. And it is only this fight-back that slows the "race to the bottom."
We're not better off if we're all sliding to the lowest level: Some disgruntled people complain that "I don't have health insurance at my job, so teachers shouldn't either." By this logic, a downward spiral of ever-lower wages and ever-weaker health insurance benefits is exactly what we should all expect. But of course that's ridiculous. How can we fight for a high standard of wages and benefits for everyone if that standard no longer exists for anyone? Should it only be CEO's that have good benefits? Shouldn't we be joining hands to demand that all workers -- regardless of job or union status -- get what teachers have fought for?
Why are teachers be singled out? A lot of venom sometimes get unleashed at teachers because they are public employees whose salary is paid by local taxes. However, there are so many myths and holes in this that it doesn't hold up to scrutiny. First, here in Vermont, the local property tax has been replaced by a much fairer system that is based in large part on ability to pay. No one making less than $88,000 in household income has to pay more than about 2% of their income for school taxes. But beyond that, just consider that taxpayers are already paying for the health insurance of nearly 60% of all those who have health insurance -- those on Medicare, Medicaid, veterans, current members of the military, all federal employees, all state employees, all municipal employees, all elected officials... the list goes on and on. And wouldn't most people prefer to see their tax dollars spent on a good school system than on another nuclear weapons system? The point is that tax dollars for schools is the best social investment any of us can make.
Teachers are no different from all workers. Teachers have special work conditions, just as all workers do. Only electric line workers have to get out of bed in the middle of the night during ice storms to repair downed lines. Only nurses must be compassionate and skilled at the beds of seriously ill and dying patients. Only teachers have to shoulder responsibility for hundreds of diverse demands every hour of every day from students, parents, administrators and their communities. But what makes all workers the same is their universal need for wages comparable to others doing their job, for working conditions that allow them to do a good job, and for economic security and dignity.
United we stand, divided we fall. Ultimately, this is the most important point. Who benefits when workers criticize other workers? No one really does. We can all only benefit when we recognize the common cause we have as workers, and when we stand together to defend any worker who's in a brave fight against the race to the bottom.
Barre Teachers Strike: The hard, necessary, fight against concessions
Vermont workers recount injustices to rights panel
Shay Totten
Vermont Guardian
December 21, 2005
BURLINGTON — A panel of legislative and ecumenical leaders heard testimony from dozens of Vermonters about the challenges they face with low pay, a lack of job security, no health care for their families, and how many employers work against their efforts to form unions.
For many of the 12-member Worker's Rights Board, chaired by U.S. Rep. Bernie Sanders, I-VT, the stories are nothing new. Worker after worker testified Dec. 10 under three broad themes: livable wages and good jobs; the right to organize and labor rights; and the right to health care.
The board was comprised of several Democratic lawmakers, one Progressive legislator, a student leader from the University of Vermont, a retiree, and several Burlington area religious leaders.
The panel, whose members were appointed by a coalition of labor organizations, has no strict mandate. In the coming weeks, however, the board will discuss specific actions it could take, or encourage others to take, as a result of the testimony it heard at the hearing, said James Haslam, director of the Vermont Worker's Center, an event sponsor.
The event, on the Trinity Campus of the University of Vermont, was held on International Human Rights Day to link the economic struggle of workers to the broader discussion of human rights, said Brady Fletcher of the Student Labor Action Project at UVM, one of the event sponsors.
"Human rights refers to many things and we don't associate, as we should, the issue of human rights with economic rights," said Sanders in an opening speech to the crowd. "To my mind, if someone cannot find a job that pays them a wage so that they and their family can live in dignity, that is a violation of human rights; if there are people across the street from here who work 40 hours a week but cannot find a doctor or dentist because they cannot buy health insurance, that's a violation of human rights. If people are living in poverty in the richest country in the world, that is a violation of human rights."
Given the location of the event, UVM's administration took the brunt of criticism from participants, many of whom are support and clerical staff members who are attempting to form a union.
"For years, UVM said that while their salaries weren't great, their benefits were," said Jennifer Larsen, a lab technician who has worked at UVM for 16 years. "Then they turned around and said that the benefits we get would bankrupt the university in 10 years, and they then gave us a large cut in our health insurance, and [no] salary increases.
"In the past five years, I have seen a 495 percent increase in premiums and that has not been matched by a salary increase — and in this academic-gone-corporate environment we have no power to speak out," Larsen added.
Two weeks ago, hundreds of students, UVM alumni, faculty, and staff, along with construction workers and community members rallied outside a UVM board of trustees meeting to call for fair labor standards on campus.
Lester Gockley, a UVM maintenance worker and member of the United Electrical Workers Local 267, said a lot of skilled jobs are going by the wayside at the university. "There is a blatant attempt to subcontract a lot of work," he said. And without a union in place to fight against this move, more jobs may have been lost by now.
"Since the arrival of UE at UVM, our organization has led an attempt to promote a livable wage, and UVM has fought this every step of the way," he said.
A UVM spokesman said the school does not openly work against union activity, as evident by the fact that four employee groups are unionized, and strives to ensure that all employees are cared for.
"Our approach with union organizing is that we simply want to make sure that our employees are in the best position to make a well-informed decision as to whether union representation is in their best interest," said Enrique Corredera, a UVM spokesman. "We also recognize the importance of well-compensated and well-cared for employees, whether they are faculty or staff as they are critical to the success of the institution and our ability to fulfill our vision."
Other than UVM employees, former employees at Wal-Mart and IBM, as well as staff members from the Community College of Vermont and Verizon, testified about the challenges they faced trying to form or maintain unions.
Haslam called the event an important step in bringing the real-life struggles of working families to the attention of people who have the power to make change.
"What we saw today was regular people coming together who have the audacity to say that we should have livable wages and good jobs, the freedom to organize, and that health care should be a basic right available to everybody," said Haslam. "And even though we are told that these things are not politically possible ... together we can change what is politically possible. This event was a step in that direction."
Teachers strike highlights health care crisis, need for unions
Times Argus Op-Ed
By James Haslam
The teachers' strike in Barre is just a dispute over who will shoulder more of the health care costs directly, the teachers or the school board. This was the heart of a two-week long strike of teachers in Colchester in October. Like most union members, for decades the teachers have given up wages in negotiations to protect their health insurance. Now, they are also being asked to give up this affordable health insurance benefit. The board wants to boost the health insurance premium co-pay to 20 percent over four years with no cap, for teachers. The Barre teachers have said they will accept more moderate increases — from 12 to 14 percent over four years — but want to keep current language that caps their obligation at a percentage of salary.
It is not helpful to anyone to have one group of workers lose health insurance benefits and for people with affordable health care to be dragged down into the unaffordable health care mess that most experience. That doesn't make it easier or cheaper for anyone else to get health insurance.
In fact, taxpayers are already paying for perhaps as much as 60 percent of all health care costs. Our taxes pay for school employees, state employees, municipal employees, the armed forces, veterans, federal employees, Medicaid and Medicare recipients. The problem is that many of us pay the majority of health care costs through our taxes, and still don't have any health care unless we pay our own premiums or just do without health insurance. That is what is unfair and that is a problem that is not fixed by teachers paying a higher co-pay. It is fixed by making health care a right to everybody.
Teachers in Barre, and many other union members, actually have what most workers want and need: an ability to have a say in how they are treated and negotiate what is fair and not have higher costs imposed on them. We should use them as a model and work towards a day when all workers have that same power in their own workplaces. The power of a seat at the table.
It is plain and simple: It is now time for health care reform. It is time that we make health care a basic right available to everybody and lift everyone up to the level where Barre teachers and other union members are. By eliminating profits and waste we can save enough money to have a universal system that covers everybody and takes health insurance out of the middle of contract negotiations. That way, the spiral is upward rather than downward.
James Haslam is the director of the Vermont Workers' Center — Jobs With Justice, which is working in a broad coalition to launch a statewide grassroots campaign to fight for universal health care.