Feb 2: Join Candlelight Vigils Across the State to Stop the Budget Cuts

The State of Vermont has a budget shortfall and Governor Douglas says it should be done without raising new revenue but through program cuts that will primarily affect children, the elderly, and low income Vermonters. Join the Vermont Workers' Center (VWC) and other organizations across the state opposing proposed state budget cuts which will be devastating to thousands of Vermont families. The VWC and other groups are organizing to stop the cuts from happening. On January 23, the VWC released a Statement on the Budget Cuts, which outlined the following principles that should be followed as we face this crisis:

• Public services are necessary for a just and sustainable society.
• Among the roles of government is to guarantee the human rights of all residents.
• A revenue shortfall is a reason to change revenue policy not budget policy.
• Public services, including education, should be funded based on ability to pay, not fees or regressive taxes like property and sales taxes.
  
• Only by concerted collective action can people ensure that government/public policy serves the needs of the people.
• Healthcare is a human right, and by establishing it as a public good it will not only be more just, but by eliminating the waste of private insurers, we will save tens of millions of dollars.

On Monday, February 2 there will be candlelight vigils in at least a dozen Vermont cities and towns.

Locations:

Bennington: Four corners Intersection of Routes 7 & 9, 5pm
Burlington: 108 Cherry Street, 5pm,
Brattleboro: Main Street Post Office,5:30pm
Hardwick: TBD
Middlebury: Traffic Island @ Middlebury Inn, 12 Noon
Montpelier: Pavilion Building, 109 State Street, 5pm,
Morrisville: Lamoille Senior Center, 24 Main St at 4 way stop downtown,5pm
Randolph: Main St in front of Northfield Savings Bank, 5pm
Rutland: Rutland Unitarian Church, 117 West Street, 5pm
St Albans: Taylor Park, 5pm,
St Johnsbury: in front of the Athenaeum, 5pm
White River Junction: Intersection of Routes 5 & 14, 5pm

Please join us and help spread the word far and wide.

More information: email james [at] workerscenter.org or call 272-0882

FEB 3: Community Forum w/Chicago Republic Sit-in Strikers

RECOVERY & RESISTANCE : Sit-In Strikers from Republic Windows & Doors in Chicago

When: 7pm, Tues, Feb 3, 2009

Where: Billings North Lounge, 48 University Place, UVM, Burlington

What: In December, 260 workers at Chicago's Republic Windows occupied their plant for six days, a sit-in strike launched in response to the closing of their plant with only 3 days notice. The Vermont Workers' Center and other Jobs with Justice coalitions along with other community, faith and labor activists from across the country mobilized in support of these workers, helping them win a settlement from Bank of America and Republic owners including severance pay and compensation for unpaid earnings.

As the economic crisis deepens, millions of people face jobs loss and foreclosures. Join the Workers' Center and other groups in celebrating the successful resistance at Republic and launch the broader campaign for an economic recovery that puts human rights before Wall Street.

More info: kate [at] workerscenter.org or call 861-2877

Fletcher Allen Techs Need Your Support

Almost 600 hospital technicians at Fletcher Allen Health Care (FAHC) are organizing to form a union, as the nurses did back in 2002. The techs and nurses are now calling on FAHC Administration to recognize their right to organize and not waste thousands of healthcare dollars on an expensive anti-union campaign. Since they formed a union in 2002 they have improved their working conditions to such a degree that what was a critical nursing shortage virtually disappeared. The union simply made the hospital a better place to work. When they formed a union there were about 1200 nurses, now there are over 1600, and the overall patient care at the hospital has improved dramatically. Now the hospital tech's are organizing for the same reasons, to ultimately create better care at our community hospital. Just like we supported the nurses back in 2002 and have continued over the years during their struggles to improve staffing at the hospital, we need to be support the hospital techs.

Sign this petition either via email (please see directions
below) or via the web at:
http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/techs

Visit the web address below to tell your friends about this.
http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/techs/forward/

Here is a Burlington Free Press article about a recent press conference with the Techs calling for the FAHC Admin agree to a Code of Conduct to respect workers' right to organize.

VWC Statement on Budget Cuts

No one doubts that we are living through difficult economic times. For many working-class Vermonters, the current economic crisis is simply an intensification of the long crisis that we have been experiencing long before the recent financial meltdown. For the last several decades, there has been a shift in government and public policy towards helping the rich get richer at the expense of working people. Working people have born the brunt of this crisis in the form of stagnant wages, downsizing and outsourcing, cuts in public services, a dysfunctional healthcare system, and an increasingly regressive tax policy that rewards the wealthy with income tax breaks while driving up fees and regressive taxes like the property tax.

We believe that, in the words of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “[e]veryone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.” We believe that these are fundamental human rights, rights that we have by virtue of being human beings, of being born into human society.

A strong and robust public sector is essential to provide all Vermonters the services they have a right to receive in order to maintain basic human dignity. Every other industrialized country, as well as many developing ones, guarantees healthcare – and often other human rights – through the public sector. The profit motive simply cannot be trusted to ensure rights, or, as recent events demonstrate, even economic stability, and private charities do not have the scale or coordination to provide a real social safety net. The last thing we need are cuts to services or more layoffs, but this is exactly what Governor Douglas’s proposed budget would bring us. The current "crisis" is not a budget crisis, it is a revenue crisis caused by repeated give-aways to the wealthy in the form of tax breaks. Using this state revenue crisis to lay off workers and cut services for the people is not only unjust, but will also actively undermine President Obama's efforts to stimulate the economy.

We are facing a worldwide economic and ecological crisis, which demands transformative change. A stimulus package from the federal government that focuses on creating “green jobs” to rebuild our physical infrastructure and make it more environmentally sound and sustainable is absolutely necessary, but it is only part of the solution. We also need to rebuild our social infrastructure, guaranteeing quality healthcare and education for all and rebuilding our tattered social safety net. Relying solely on economic growth to take care of social needs is no longer an option – we can’t afford to be forced into making choices between jobs and the environment as the planet warms.

The Vermont Workers' Center believes that the following principles need to be followed as we face this crisis:

• Public services are necessary for a just and sustainable society.
• Among the roles of government is to guarantee the human rights of all residents.
• A revenue shortfall is a reason to change revenue policy not budget policy.
• Public services, including education, should be funded based on ability to pay, not fees or regressive taxes like property and sales taxes.
  
• Only by concerted collective action can people ensure that government/public policy serves the needs of the people.
• Healthcare is a human right, and by establishing it as a public good it will not only be more just, but by eliminating the waste of private insurers, we will save tens of millions of dollars.

Human Rights Hearing in Barre

Local residents testify about impact of healthcare crisis

Where: Old Labor Hall, 46 Granite Street, Barre, Vermont

When: 7:00 PM, Thursday, January 29, 2009

What: For months, volunteers for the Vermont Workers' Center have been surveying Vermonters from all across the state about their experiences with the healthcare system. The results have been clear: Vermonters believe that healthcare should be a human right, and many are suffering because of lack of access to affordable, quality healthcare. The crisis continues to worsen as the state's budget problems have led to painful cuts to State health programs, exacerbating the crisis for thousands of Vermont families.

On Thursday, January 29, this conversation comes to Barre as part of the "Healthcare is a Human Right" campaign, which is coordinated by the Workers' Center, to build a movement that can help reform the State's healthcare system so it will guarantee care to all Vermonters regardless of income. The testimony about the impact the lack of access to healthcare has had on the lives of area families will be heard by a community listening panel comprised of faith leaders, health professionals and other community leaders.

Background: After conducting over 1,200 surveys and holding hearings in Brattleboro, Burlington, St. Albans and Lyndonville, on Human Rights Day, December 10, 2008, the Vermont Workers' Center issued a report "Voices of the Vermont Healthcare Crisis: Healthcare Is A Human Right." The report and accompanying video can be downloaded online.

Download print report (1.82 MB PDF file)

Watch 7-minute video: http://blip.tv/file/157451