170+ Attend VWC Workshops on Anti-racism & Building A Social Justice Movement

From October 25 - November 2nd the Vermont Workers' Center held seven workshops around the state on Anti-racism & Building A Social Justice Movement with trainers from the Catalyst Project. Participants included high school and college students, teachers, union leaders, state employees, retirees, Americorp volunteers and Vermont non-profit staff. Here's what one participanet sent us:
"I just got back from the Anti-Racist Conference with the Catalyst Project and am so energized! I brought 8 kids and an ELL teacher, all of whom are interested in taking the knowledge they learned today and bringing it back to our school. Barre has not traditionally been kind to people of color, even though they have a history of heavy immigration to the area, including radicals from Italy and France. For most of us, it isn’t fear or not liking those that are not like us that creates the racism, but sometimes a pure lack of knowledge or ignorance. I’ve seen an increase in behaviors from students who are listening to some incredible hate filled attacks on Blacks and other people of color in the media and are not real sure what to do with this information. They are confused. This conference has helped me harness some ideas to help direct these students with the help of our now core group of anti-racists! One student said she learned more about history today than she has in entire classes. Another said her head was spinning she learned so much. There was learning on the part of the adults in the room, as well. Our students brought a perspective that could not have been replaced.

Thanks Worker’s Center for bringing this important Anti-Racism Conference to central Vermont."
- Amy Lester, School Counselor, Spaulding High School and Barre Technical Center

The VWC is holding a major statewide Human Rights Conference on December 13th at the University of Vermont, which will feature workshops on anti-racism. Online registration will begin soon.

WORKSHOP: Anti-racism & Building a Social Justice Movement

WHAT: A series of full day anti-racism workshops for community members. It is a workshop which is meant for anyone actively engaged in efforts for social change (or would like to be). Each of these workshops will explore institutional racism, white privilege, and how people, especially white people, can put this analysis into practice to build powerful, multiracial movements for justice.

WHEN: Full-day trainings will be held 9am - 4pm on:
Saturday, October 25, St. Michaels College (SMC)
Sunday, October 26, University of Vermont (UVM)
Monday, October 27, Aldrich Library, Barre
Thursday, October 30, Brattleboro Union High School (BUHS) (New!)
Saturday, November 1, Vermont Workers' Center, Burlington
Sunday, November 2, University of Vermont (UVM)

WHO: These trainings are being coordinated by the Vermont Workers' Center and facilitated by the Catalyst Project, which is based in San Francisco. The Vermont Workers' Center is a movement-building community-based workers' organization based in Burlington. Sponsors of these trainings include: ALANA Community Organization, Burlington Livable City Coalition, Community Service Programs of Student Life (UVM), Dept of Multicultural Student Affairs (SMC), New Directions of Barre, Post Oil Solutions, SMC Peace & Justice Center, Students For Peace & Global Justice (UVM), Student Labor Action Project (UVM), Student Labor Action Movement (SMC) and Vermont Anti-Racism Action Team (VARAT).

The training will be led by long-time anti-racist activists Chris Crass and Ingrid Chapman of the Catalyst Project:

Chris Crass is an organizer and trainer with the Catalyst Project, a center for political education and movement building. He has worked in struggles for economic, racial and gender justice for the past 20 years. His essays on collective liberation politics, anti-authoritarian leadership, feminism, and movement building have been published widely in Left Turn, Clamor and on ZNet and Infoshop.org.

Ingrid Chapman is a working class organizer and trainer with the Catalyst Project. Her roots within social and economic justice organizing began as a leading member of the global justice movement in the late '90s. Ingrid has led Catalyst Project's New Orleans Solidarity Program, working with the Peoples' Hurricane Relief Fund and Common Ground supporting the struggles for the right of return and equitable rebuilding. The last 5 years she has worked with Oakland residents in struggles for tenant rights, community safety and alternatives to incarceration and policing.

REGISTER: Fee is $25 for adults, students/youth are free. Lunch included. Register for any one of the full-day workshops at www.workerscenter.org/register (space is limited)

More Info: Contact James Haslam at 802-272-0882 or james@workerscenter.org

Solidarity School 2008

The Campaign piece was very helpful and I began to use what I learned at my workplace the next week.

On March 29, the second annual Vermont Workers' Center Solidarity School concluded. 20 union members, students and community activists participated in three days of popular education, spread over six weeks. Participants sharpened their organizing skills, discussed how to put together tactics and strategies into successful campaigns to win concrete improvements for working people, explored people's history and the impact of racism on movements for progressive change, and — most importantly, in the views of many participants — had the opportunity to "connect with other workers, hear personal stories and struggles that others have, realize our similarities."

I appreciated the diversity of the facilitators and their experiences

The 2008 Solidarity School builds on the highly successful 2007 Solidarity School, and four graduates from the 2007 school returned to help facilitate the school this year, joining veterans of the VWC Education Committee, Kate Kanelstein from UVM SLAP and Doyle Canning from smartMeme.

Extra thanks and shout-outs to the organizations whose education materials we learned from/used/borrowed/stole: Project South, National Network For Immigrant and Refugee Rights, UE Education Department, Beyond the Choir, smartMeme, POWER, and others we may have missed ...

More photos of Solidarity School 2008

JOIN US SATURDAY: Building A Movement For Worker Justice

Saturday, January 26
BUILDING A MOVEMENT FOR WORKER JUSTICE CONFERENCE
9am, UVM Davis Center (There is no-charge, use this link and click on Register at the bottom of the page to REGISTER RIGHT NOW)
Check it out Jan 23rd story in Seven Days

A major gathering for workers, students, educators and health care providers to build a movement for workers' rights, livable wages, economic justice, quality healthcare for all and global solidarity. (See sponsors below)

Agenda
8:45-9:10 REGISTRATION

9:15-9:50 WELCOMING SESSION
Organizing for Our Future
Special Guest: Larry Cohen, President, Communications Workers of America

10-10:50 WORKSHOP SESSION 1
* Developing An Economy That Works For All (Traven Leyshon, President Washington-Orange-Lamoille County Central Labor Council AFL-CIO and Director of Highroad Vermont)
* Defending Social Services & Fighting Privatization (Ed Stanak, former president of the VT State Employees Association)
* Using The Media Effectively In Your Campaigns (Darren Allen, Vermont NEA & Doug Gibson, VSEA)
* Lessons from the Verizon Stop The Sale Campaign & The Next Steps in Universal Broadband Access in New England (Larry Cohen, CWA and Mike Spillane IBEW Local 2326, goes for both sessions)
* Building a Campaign for Livable wages (Emma Mulvaney-Stanak, former director of the VT Livable Wage Campaign and organizer with Vermont NEA)
* Getting Started: Basics in beginning to organize for change in our communities (James Haslam, Director of Vermont Workers' Center and Phil Fiermonte, longtime community & labor organizer)
* Global Trade, Outsourcing & Workers Organizing Across Borders (Dan Brush, organizer with Teamsters Local 1L, Earl Mongeon and Lee Conrad from Alliance @ IBM)
* How to survive and thrive in a career in healthcare (Jen Henry, RN, president of the Fletcher Allen nurses union)

11-11:50 WORKSHOP SESSION 2
* Strategies in Starting to Organize At Your Workplace (James Haslam, Vermont Workers' Center)
* Labor Mobilizing For Elections (Jan Schaffer, AFL-CIO)
* The Labor Movement and the fight for quality universal healthcare (Traven Leyshon, Washington-Orange-Lamoille CLC, Highroad Vermont)
* People vs. Money: Grassroots Lobbying To Win Legislation (Emma Mulvaney-Stanak, former director, VLWC and organizer, Vermont NEA)
* Creating A Beautiful Revolution: Using Art In Our Campaigns (Jessica Morley, President UE Local 203, & members of the Vermont Workers' Center Art Committee)
* No Child Left Behind, Act 82 & the Future of Public Education Funding in Vermont (Angelo Dorta and Darren Allen of Vermont NEA)
Starting From Scratch: How to start organizing at your school (Kate Kandelstein, UVM SLAP and other SLAP and CLEA leaders)

12-12:45 BROWN BAG WORKING LUNCH

A People's History of Healthcare in the United States: Presentation by Jonathan Kissam, Vermont Workers' Center Education Committee


— OR —

STUDENTS AND WORKERS UNITED: Building a statewide network of workers' rights struggles at schools. Speakers from UVM SLAP, Green Mountain College SLAP, CLEA, Vermont Workers' Center, United Staff, United Academics and UE Local 267 (UVM service and maintenance workers)

12:45-2:00 PLENARY: Building a Movement for Healthcare for All, Livable Wages and Workers' Rights

Facilitated by U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders

Panel includes:
JEN HENRY, President, UPV/AFT
ANGELO DORTA, President, Vermont NEA
ANGELA DIGIULIO, Student Labor Action Project
LARRY COHEN, President, Communications Workers of America (CWA)

2pm GROUP PHOTO and MARCH
Participants are invited to join the Many Struggles, One Movement march, part of a Global Day of Action: Act Together for Another World. Themes are: TROOPS HOME NOW, HEALTHCARE IS A RIGHT, CLIMATE JUSTICE march leaves from UVM Davis Center to Church Street. Bring your banners, signs, and join hundreds of people and giant puppets

(There is no-charge, use this link and click on Register at the bottom of the page to REGISTER RIGHT NOW)

SOCIAL FORUM SOCIAL – VWC Fundraiser
6:30pm, Vermont Workers' Center, 294 N. Winooski Ave, Burlington
Discussion about World Social Forum and US Social Forum process, video from VT delegation in 2007 in Atlanta, and then fun, food and drinks.

Building A Movement For Worker Justice Sponsors:
Alliance@IBM/CWA Local 1701
American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 1343
Child Labor Education & Action (CLEA)
Communication Workers of America (CWA)
Ironworkers Local 7
Senator Bernie Sanders
Student Labor Action Project (SLAP), UVM Chapter
Student Labor Action Project (SLAP), Green Mountain College Chapter
United Academics UPV/AFT
United Electrical Radio & Machine Workers of America (UE) Local 267
United Nurses and Allied Professionals (UNAP) Local 5109
United Professions of Vermont, American Federation of Teachers (UPV/AFT)
United Staff at UVM
Vermont Federation of Nurses & Health Professionals Local 5221, UPV/AFT
Vermont Livable Wage Campaign — Peace & Justice Center
Vermont State Employees Association (VSEA)
Vermont Workers' Center — Jobs With Justice
Washington-Orange-Lamoille Counties Central Labor Council AFL-CIO

REGISTER NOW: Jan 26th Building Worker Justice Movement

The Vermont Workers' Center is pleased to announce that on January 26, workers, students, educators and health care providers from around the state will be gathering at Building a Movement for Worker Justice.

This will be a three part conference, geared for working Vermonters, students and including our annual Justice For Healthcare Workers focus. It aims to build a stronger movement for workers' rights, livable wages, economic justice, quality healthcare for all and global solidarity. After the conference there will be a major rally and march as part of the Global Day of Action.

View agenda, download brochures and register at http://www.workerscenter.org/register/#jan26

REGISTER NOW (its free!)

USSF Report: Project South's workshop, "Critical Classroom: Education for Liberation and Movement Building"

Rebecca Smith, BEA President and VWC USSF delegate

This was easily the highlight of my first day. First off, I have never seen a room occupancy fire code violated so badly – there were so many people in the room we were literally knee to knee on the floor with no more than a few square inches of carpet to be seen!

The facilitators used the popular education model to engage us all as active participants. This was really cool to turn to the people whose knees were touching mine and hear their reasons they chose to teach for social justice. The goals of this workshop were to “examine and reframe assumptions found in traditional scholarship and teaching, to discuss popular education as a pedagogical strategy for creating a climate of social justice, and to explore action steps in classroom and curriculum transformation.”

I learned a new, scary term: Professional Industrial Complex. The facilitators are all university professors, and consider themselves “scholar activists”. They specify these two aspects of their jobs because one cannot exist without the other. In order to teach independently of the corporate, industrial model of education, they need to act as scholar activists, encouraging their students to unlearn misconceptions and rethink what it means to be educated.

Why does popular education work? Here’s what the group shared:

* Popular education is directly connected to community organizing – it’s learning in action.
* is egalitarian, human, and fosters cooperative relationship building through the sharing of personal experiences
* allows us to temporarily live the microcosmic society we envision
* requires support, time, resources, integration of teachers and community
* integrates culture, theater, arts, music
* brings grassroots action to institutions
* teaches us to unlearn misconceptions

I’m now a proud member, and looking forward to participating in the planning sessions for the next World Education Forum.

VWC Summer Meeting Discusses USSF, Leadership Development, Campaigns

Newly elected Workers' Center Vice-President David Kreindler leads a workshop on leadership development at the Workers' Center summer meeting.

The VWC's summer steering committee meeting brought new excitement, energy and leadership to the organization. In addition to many long-time steering committee members and representatives from VWC coalition members such as CWA, UE, SLAP and the Washington-Orange Central Labor Council, there were new steering committee members from Iraq Veterans Against the War, COTS workers, media organizers and health-and-safety activists. In addition, a number of members of the VWC Coordinating Committee (or "CoCo," the VWC's executive committee, made up of officers and at-large representatives) recently stepped down, and five new members, all women, were elected. "It's great to have so many new people, especially young people, excited about the Workers' Center," commented VWC Organzier James Haslam. "And it's always good to have a meeting where so many different people get to talk about their campaigns and experiences, and everyone gets to participate."

The meeting led off with a report from four members of the VWC delegation to the US Social Forum in June. Delegates Angela DiGiulio, Julie Winn, Jessica Morley, and Jonathan Kissam shared their excitement at being part of this historic gathering, and reported on workshops on topics ranging from international labor solidarity to the death penalty to the ongoing effects of Hurricane Katrina. The VWC/USSF delegation is continuing to meet to discuss how to bring the movement-building work of the USSF back to Vermont (anyone who wants to be part of these ongoing meetings should contact VWC Organizer James Haslam at 802 272 0882 or james at workerscenter dot org).

VWC CoCo member and 2007 Solidarity School graduate David Kreindler then led the meeting in a leadership-development exercise to give steering committee members a flavor of the Solidarity School held by the Workers' Center in the winter of 2007. "Instead of reporting on the solidarity school, we're going to demonstrate it," he said, using the kinds of popular education tools featured in the school. Steering committee members broke up into small groups and everyone got to share one instance in which they had been helped to step up as a leader. The small groups analyzed the commonalities and then reported back to the larger group, report-backs which repeatedly stressed the importance of mentoring, of being asked to take a leadership role, and of a personal commitment to justice. The VWC will likely be holding a one-day Solidarity School for community leaders in the fall, as well as another 3-day Solidarity School for emerging union leaders in the winter of 2008.

Reports on campaigns and Coordinating Committee elections filled up the rest of the meeting. VWC Organizer James Haslam reported on the efforts of the Burlington Livable City Coalition to support the livable-wage campaign by school support staff represented by AFSCME and the Burlington Education Association, VWC CoCo member Peg Franzen reported on successful petitioning for single-payer outside the showings of Michael Moore's new movie SICKo, and Traven Leyshon, president of the Washington-Orange Central Labor Council (and VWC CoCo member) reported on the efforts of Vermont Labor Against the War to build an antiwar presence at the Labor Day parade and to encourage union members to participate in the Iraq Moratorium. CWA member Darlene Stone stop the sale of Verizon's land-lines to Fairpoint, ending her report by singing "They Tried to sell us off to Fairpoint" to the tune of Amy Winehouse's "They Tried to Send Me to Rehab," for which she received a round of applause.

The newly elected members of the Coordinating Committee are Kit Andrews (Secretary), Angela DiGiulio (Student Labor Action Project rep), Jen Henry (Justice for Healthcare Workers rep), Darlene Stone (at-large), and Emily Casey (at-large). In addition, several current CoCo members took on new officer positions: Dawn Stanger took over the position of President, David Kreindler was elected Vice-President, and Peg Franzen became Treasurer. At-large members Traven Leyshon and Jonathan Kissam will continue in their duties.

Solidarity School 2007

The Vermont Workers' Center finished its first-ever 3-day Solidarity School on March 15th. Participants from numerous area unions, including the NEA, UE, United Staff (UVM), Laborers, Ironworkers, IBEW, VSEA, and others, spent three full days over the course of a month discussing contract campaigns, membership mobilization, cross-union solidarity and "big picture" items like health care, retirement security, the war and movement-building.

The school was a result of the Workers' Center's fall 2006 strategy retreat, which identified leadership development as a key priority for our work in 2007.

More photos can be seen in our photo album.