Brushed off in Vermont

Brian McGrory
Boston Globe
June 17, 2005

If you ever wonder how it is that big business has earned such a bad name these days, look no further than a Boston-based venture capital company by the name of Capital Resource Partners.

First, CRP, as it's often known, decided to shutter a Vermont manufacturing plant it has owned for a few years that has been in operation since the 19th century. The plant, part of Specialty Filaments Inc., makes bristles for hairbrushes, brooms, and Oral-B toothbrushes. If there's anything more American than a northern New England bristle-making factory, I haven't seen it.

CRP summoned the plant's hundred or so workers to a downtown Burlington hotel last month and hired some outsourced human resources types to give them the cheery news. Police stood at the edges of the room. The announcement lasted less than five minutes. The officials left without taking questions.

Good going, guys. Good going.
But maybe, just maybe, you can chalk that up to overseas competition, maybe a change in oral hygiene habits. Possibly people are suddenly sweeping less since CRP bought the company.

But that's not the bad part.

No, the bad part is what happened a few days later. A few days later, Capital Resource Partners told the plant workers that they would each get two weeks' severance, regardless of their tenure at the plant. The worker who had labored at the plant for 20 years would get two weeks' worth. Thirty-year veterans, two weeks. Forty-year veterans, well, you get the picture.

And that's not all. According to the union, Capital Resource Partners told the workers that they could not guarantee that severance would even be paid. On top of that, if a worker found a new job within that two weeks, they forfeited their severance pay.

You read that right: Men and women making maybe $15 an hour who had dedicated their working lives to a bristle manufacturing company might have to give their paltry severance back to the multimillionaire Bostonians who are shutting down their plant. Hold on: I've got Charles Dickens calling on Line 1.

Actually, it was James Lamore on the phone. He's 57 years old. He's worked at the plant for 34 years. He remembers the days that don't seem so long ago when it was the number one bristle manufacturing operation in the world. And now he gets two weeks severance maybe.

"We are devastated, let me tell you," he said.

Of special concern is his pension. He and a couple of dozen other longtimers had a pension under the plant's old owners, the EB & AC Whiting Co., but no one under the new regime will tell them where the money is, or if it still exists.

I gave Capital Resource Partners a call. The kind receptionist referred me to the chief operating officer, Jeffrey W. Potter, who didn't call me back. I called him again and again; no call back.

Maybe Jeffrey W. Potter was busy looking for the factory workers' pension, so I sent an e-mail to Robert C. Ammerman, the CRP founder and managing partner. He did not reply. I called his house in Beverly Farms last night. No response.

I won't take it personally. US Representative Bernard Sanders of Vermont told me yesterday that he's called Robert C. Ammerman three times in the last month, and Ammerman has not called back. He's probably so worried about these employees that he can barely talk about them. Right.

"When people work for 15, 20, 25 years, you have to treat them with a little bit of dignity," Sanders said. "Giving them $1,500 and telling them to have a good life doesn't do it."

Admittedly, for all I know, Robert C. Ammerman and Jeffrey W. Potter of Capital Resource Partners in downtown Boston might be the most philanthropic guys in town. They might be great businessmen. They might be kind to kids and dogs. But they've caused a whole lot of pain for a whole lot of hard-working people who deserved a whole lot better than what they got. And for that, they should be truly ashamed.

Brian McGrory is a Globe columnist. His email is mcgrory@globe.com

Speech at Anti-War, Anti-Budget-Cuts Rally

By Dawn Stanger

Hello. I'm Dawn Stanger and I'm a Teamster. I work up at UPS in Williston. And I'm here representing folks from the Vermont Workers Center, and U.S. Labor Against the War - USLAW. The Workers' Center is a coalition of trade unions, community groups, and individual workers pushing for economic justice. We are also Vermont's only Jobs with Justice chapter. In January '03 the Workers' Center affiliated with USLAW, the union group opposed to attacking Iraq, and in September '04, I'm proud to say that Vermont's AFL-CIO joined millions of union workers across the U.S. in opposing the occupation. Over the last two years, major national unions and state labor federations have demanded the troops home now.

So USLAW has built ties with Iraqi trade unionists and some will tour the U.S. soon. Hopefully they'll visit Vermont. Their labor movement has a proud history, including resistance to British occupation with strikes suppressed at gunpoint. Unions were outlawed then, and then again by the Baathists after a general strike in '68. And Saddam executed union activists. Since Saddam's overthrow, the Iraqis worked quickly, organizing unions in 12 industries. They organized a union of the unemployed, 150,000 strong, and marched and demonstrated for survival payments. They held a 45-day sit-in across from American headquarters. In Basra, Iraqis stopped working 2 days after British troops arrived, demanding the right to organize. Refinery workers struck demanding better wages. Leather factory workers stormed out of work and marched to the Labor Ministry. Though they've been imprisoned by the U.S, and tortured and killed by the resistance, Iraq's union folks are the single most important force fighting for a democratic, multi-ethnic Iraq. In recent coverage of the Pope's death, we saw how he helped Labor in Poland leading to the overthrow of a repressive government. Unions help create and maintain democracy. We condemn all attacks on Iraq's trade unionists.

When WTO protestors like me look at the U.S. plan for Iraq, we see the same old free trade. There's the privatization of public services, ownership rights for foreign firms, repatriation of profits, a 15% flat tax, opening banks to foreign control, structural adjustment programs, and national treatment for corporations. Trade barriers have been eliminated. Iraq will join the WTO and sign MEFTA , the Middle East Free Trade Area announced last May. But Saddam's law that barred union membership and representation - that was not changed. War makes privatization easy. First you destroy society. Then you let corporations rebuild it. And we're busy building and maintaining 14 military bases in Iraq with your hard-earned tax dollars.
On the home front, thousands of workers were de-unionized in creating the Department of Homeland Security; the Bush administration felt their unions a security threat. Now our president proposes new rules called the "National Security Personnel System" that would tear up union contracts and eliminate protections our federal workers have against political pressures. Whistle-blowers and critics could simply be transferred away. When the shipping firms locked out the Longshore Workers, the Attorney General declared commercial shipping a matter of national security, and got an injunction so the President could send troops to work the docks. Yet today, cargo containers are still uninspected. Three Republican governors have now negated their state workers' right to bargain and 9 million dollars of the first 87 million for Iraq was used to arm police in Miami against free trade protestors, union folks, while U.S. chemical plants are still unsecured. Our nuclear plants are vulnerable. You just gotta ask "Who's really being protected?"

Corporations squash our collective interests. Watching the fake Social Security crisis, it occurred to me that privatization and deregulation are most often not done at gunpoint. Here, after trumpeting decades how government is bloated and wasteful and how privatization and de-regulation work, corporate politicians have convinced many Americans that government programs are bad. This way Wall Street can sneak in and rob us of the safety net that our grandparents in the labor movement struggled years to build after economic downturns forced families to the breadlines. Workers' Center folks are increasingly alarmed about our nation's priorities. We live in a country where the top 1% has more income each year than the bottom 100 million people combined.

Look at the bankruptcy bill if you want a nutshell of our system. The credit companies made 30 billion last year, charging people outrageous interest rates to compensate for their risk. And 90% of bankruptcies were caused by lost jobs, death in the family, divorce, or medical bills. But no longer will a judge be allowed to look at your case and say, ah, oh yes, we'll forgive your debt because you were forced into this by your kid's diabetes or your husband's death. No way. This bill makes judges ignore your circumstances and set payments, creating debtors for life, doing at home what the World Bank has done overseas for years. Yes, the corporate politicians will teach us responsibility 'til it hurts. Media deceives, but workers can't miss the connections over time.

In the wealthiest country in the world, huge tax cuts combined with military expenses make debt for our grandchildren and cuts in our services. But we have needs. We need retirement security; half our grandparents would live in poverty otherwise. We need insurance so if we get killed and can't work, our children are protected. We need medical care that keeps folks healthy, separate from jobs and paid for collectively and progressively. If we had proper preventive care in Vermont, we wouldn't have a third of our soldiers returned home for medical reasons. We need our government to help solve real collective crises like childcare costs, healthcare, and fossil fuels, but political donations cannot be the deciding factor. This is supposed to be a democracy. And taxing the rich is never discussed. We're the ones who sacrifice. It's a neo-con game.

And neo-cons are not working for democracy, either here or in Iraq. Unions increase democracy. Unions indicate how well workers are doing overall, and unions are now down to 11% here. This means American families are hurting. In 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower said, "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants… It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 … This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."

Eisenhower got it. But in 1945, corporations paid 1/3 of all taxes collected. By 2003, their share was down to 7%. 3/5ths of corporations paid no taxes between '96 and 2000. Given huge tax cuts, they free-traded our manufacturing away. Huge tax cuts given while real wages dropped since the 70's and families could only keep up by working ridiculous hours. Huge tax cuts to the rich, and they dare to come back to us now to pay for their war. The military consumes 50% of our taxes and corporations and the rich pay even less now. The wealthiest country in the world and we are continually trying to stave off cuts. And we know what rending our social fabric means. It means less food stamp eligibility, less FDA inspections, less highway improvements, less health care, less small business assistance, less for veterans, less foster care, less Medicaid, less Medicare, less for poverty, less for farmers, seniors, students, cops, veterans, the homeless, and the hungry. All so the rich can have more money.

Vermont's soldiers are our co-workers, neighbors, friends, relatives, and our children. Yes, they're volunteers, but most are economic draftees looking for a better life. Turned down at Wal Mart, Jessica Lynch went to Iraq. This war betrayed soldiers' faith that their government wouldn't deceive them. This was not defensive. Vermont's soldiers signed up to protect people, not corporations. And to those who say this is not a local issue, I say this; we pay for the war here. We're buried here, and we'll all live here with Vermont vets and any ghosts they bring home. At the Workers' Center we're urging workers to stand and fight. The workers who build the wealth are under attack. The Iraqis struck at gunpoint. Who dies in wars? We do. Who pays? We do. Who mourns? We do. Who profits? Not us. This folks, is class war and it's fought locally, with wages, taxes, jobs, retirement, healthcare. Our working class soldiers are fighting for a system that is stacked high against them, there and here. We stand here today demanding justice, a society of our priorities, not those pushed down from the 5% at the top of the economic ladder. "Never have so few taken so much from so many for so long."

Our troops should not be sacrificed to make the world safe for corporations, or to distract us from economic disaster brewing at home. Resources should be redirected from the military to things workers really need, while providing adjustment assistance for those displaced. In the end, the best way to support troops is to make sure they don't fight wars that shouldn't be fought, wars for oil and empire, wars that don't serve working class interests here or elsewhere. We must repudiate bullying foreign policies, dismantle our worldwide military bases, and renounce offensive wars. Otherwise we will only send more loved ones to die for no good reason in a world made more dangerous by the arrogance of our government. We want our benefits and we want our troops home now.

Dawn Stanger is a Teamster and Vice-President of the Vermont Workers' Center

IBM Essex Junction, VT Plant “Honored” With 2004 Dirty Dozen Award

Charging that IBM does not adequately protect their employees, their families and the community at large from dangerous solvents and chemicals used in the manufacturing process, the Alliance @IBM / CWA Local 1701 joined the Toxics Action Center to present the company with a 2004 Dirty Dozen Award. The Alliance@IBM is an alternative union campaign representing IBM employees across the United States, and the Toxics Action Center is a New England-based environmental group. They were joined by a representative of the Vermont Workers’ Center / Jobs with Justice and the Political Director of the Vermont State Labor Council.

More from Alliance@IBM »

Unions work for everyone

Op-Ed in Burlington Free Press, August 26, 2003

By James Haslam

The main reason people need unions is to have a voice about their working conditions. As the saying suggests, "united we bargain, divided we beg."

Organizing a union is the only way for workers to wrench fairness from the corporate system. As Labor Day approaches, more and more workers are realizing the value of union membership. In Vermont, from the nurses at Fletcher Allen, to UVM's faculty, to the co-op workers at City Market and Hunger Mountain, thousands of workers are organizing unions.

The Fletcher Allen RNs recently demonstrated how forming a union works, and how union members can make real changes at work. After several unsuccessful attempts where management spent millions on anti-union campaigns, last Oct. 4, the RNs voted two to one to unionize.

Since poor working conditions and short staffing in health care can lead to people dying, AFT Local 5221 could then discuss and take initiative on things they wanted changed. So they negotiated a contract that, among other things, insisted upon safe "nurse-to-patient staffing ratios" - contract language that can save patients' lives. They also helped lead a statewide Patient Safety Act, which calls for the same for all our state's hospitals. The lesson is that, being organized, they were able to accomplish things that they would not be able to do as individuals.

This is also an example of unions creating a more just society. When only the employer class organizes, into chambers of commerce, business and industry associations, and PACs, corporate interests control public policy. But when workers organize, they can change public policy so it serves working class families, not just the rich.

When you see the bumper sticker, "The Labor Movement: The Folks That Brought You the Weekend," remember that it was union activists who fought to win Social Security, paid sick leave, vacations, and holidays, work place health and safety laws, public education, the eight-hour day, the 40-hour week, protection from discrimination and more. It has always been a fight to push forward social reforms, but only in struggle is victory possible.

Layoffs result when corporate executives put profit above public good. Workers at IBM are now organizing a union, Alliance@IBM with the Communication Workers of America (CWA). They have given their lives to IBM yet now they're being dumped, and rich executives are dictating their lay-off conditions. Verizon too wants to move jobs, eliminate and contract out work. But in contrast to IBM, Verizon employees (CWA members and those in the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers) are currently negotiating to keep their jobs. The fact that these workers have a union contract and can actively protect their livelihood, instead of being at the mercy of management's whims, is important for Vermont.

Since workers are consumers, their jobs are vital to all local commerce. With free trade policies and corporate globalization leading to the loss of good jobs, the 500-plus Verizon jobs represent some of the last good jobs in Vermont. Workers' collective interests often extend to greater community interests.

Labor Day is the time to honor the contribution workers have made in society. It's a time to celebrate our struggles and victories to improve our lives and our communities.

On Saturday Aug. 30, unionized nurses, Verizon workers, and hundreds of other workers with their families will gather for the 3rd Annual Labor Parade and Picnic in Burlington. The parade starts at 11 a.m. at H.O. Wheeler School and ends at Roosevelt Park, where there will be music, speakers, and free food (prepared with volunteer union labor). It's time to celebrate Vermont's exciting labor movement, and help put the "move" in the movement.

James Haslam is director of the Vermont Workers' Center, a nonprofit workers' rights organization based in Montpelier.

Vermont Workers and Communities Fight for Healthcare Justice

By James Haslam, Director, Vermont Workers' Center
Published in Labor Notes, August 2003



For the nurses of Vermont’s largest hospital, Fletcher Allen, three times was not the charm. The more than 1,200 registered nurses of the hospital had tried unsuccessfully to form a union three times over the previous decade in the face of management’s aggressive union-busting tactics.

On their fourth try, with the help of the Vermont Workers’ Center / Jobs with Justice and the AFL-CIO, the nurses had an unprecedented level of community support. This helped to tip the scales in their favor. In the latest and most dramatic victory in the Workers’ Center’s Justice for Healthcare Workers Campaign, the Fletcher Allen nurses, organized as new members of United Professions of Vermont/American Federation of Teachers Local 5221, won their contract campaign.

The proposed new agreement includes a ban on floating, a ban on mandatory overtime (which will ensure that nurses are not forced to work grueling back-to-back shifts) and staffing ratios, based on the California ratios with an additional mechanism which gives nurses the ability to change ratios and control over the Hospital's staffing budget -- which makes it among the best agreements in the country in terms of staffing language.

BUILDING COMMUNITY SOLIDARITY

The groundswell of public support for the nurses’ historic victory represents the culmination of years of Workers’ Center community mobilization around a series of union struggles. In 1998, the United Nurses & Allied Professionals Local 5109 went on strike at Copley Hospital. It was big news in a small Vermont community.

The Workers’ Center helped by doing a tremendous amount of leafleting, phonebanking, writing letters to the editor, coordinating rides for community members to our picket line, calling the hospital CEO, and attending a huge rally. They used similar mobilization tactics later that same year, when nurses at Rutland Regional Medical Center organized a union, Office and Professional Employees International Union Local 6, and had to withstand an anti-union decertification drive after not getting their first contract. With the community’s help, the union defeated the decertification drive and got their first contract.

When workers at Berlin Health and Rehabilitation Center (BH&RC) in central Vermont organized with the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) in 2000 to become the first unionized private nursing home in the state, the Workers’ Center put its muscle behind their struggle. Adding to the challenge was the hiring, by the corporation that ran BH&RC, of the notorious union-busting law firm Jackson Lewis. The UE and the Workers’ Center fought the Jackson Lewis anti-union campaign by organizing an Appeal to Fairness petition that called on the company to end the campaign and respect the workers’ right to organize. Religious leaders, politicians, and hundreds of community members heeded the call to sign the petition.

The Appeal to Fairness was delivered to the BH&RC administration by a community delegation. Just as important, it was also given to all the nursing home workers, so they knew their community was behind them. The workers prevailed and formed a union, UE Local 254, and entered into 19 arduous months of bargaining to win a first contract.

To support the workers through this struggle, the Workers’ Center formed a community support committee that organized candlelight vigils, rallies, targeted parades, and informational pickets at BH&RC and its sister facilities throughout the state.

Community delegations were sent to the U.S. headquarters of the corporation that owns BH&RC and a stockholders meeting in Toronto, and also made several visits to the nursing home itself. With the tremendous commitment of a core group of leaders from the organizing committee at this nursing home (which sees approximately 70% annual worker turnover) supported by intense, organized community pressure, the workers were able to achieve their purpose and more.

Not only did the BH&RC workers get their contract in January 2002, but the state of Vermont, responding to all the attention generated by this campaign (which focused on the need for decent working conditions and adequate staffing in nursing homes) implemented the first ever staffing rules for Vermont nursing homes.

LARGER CAMPAIGN

During this time of community organizing around the BH&RC workers, the Workers’ Center realized that short-staffing and poverty wages were prevalent in all other nursing homes in the state as well. And with five or more unions representing healthcare workers in Vermont, something needed to be done to bring them all together to work in common struggle. From these realizations, the “Justice for Healthcare Workers” campaign was born.

The campaign has been successful because it has enabled Vermont’s five health care unions, along with community activists from all over the state, to work together towards a common goal. It has also framed the various healthcare worker struggles throughout the state as one big struggle, in the broader context of healthcare reform and as a social justice cause.

The Workers’ Center also sees the Fletcher Allen campaign as a groundbreaking victory in healthcare that creates the potential for fixing a broken healthcare system in Vermont. It has held rallies, forums, workshops and public education events around the need for universal healthcare access. As healthcare workers organize and unite their struggles, they can help lead the fight for worker justice and quality, and affordable healthcare for all. With eight of twelve Vermont hospitals, all nursing homes but one and thousands of other healthcare workers unorganized, we look forward to building off these recent victories to win many more for both the labor and healthcare justice movements!

Victory at Fletcher Allen Healthcare

The Fletcher Allen nurses reached a tentative agreement, moments before the rally this Saturday, June 21st (see their news release below)!

Congratulations to all of the Fletcher Allen nurses! You were incredibly strong, committed and united through this whole struggle - and with this strength you've accomplished great things!

The nurses will vote on the settlement in the coming days, but what they've won in this settlement is nothing short of historic. It is a huge victory for the nurses at Fletcher Allen, of course, but also for all Vermont nurses, as Fletcher Allen sets the standard for the state. It's a big win for all Vermonters, who will benefit from the improved quality patient care that nurses will be able to provide. And it's even bigger than that, for the triumph at Fletcher Allen is one for nurses throughout the country (they are the first hospital in the country to have a ban on mandatory overtime and one of ten who have won nurse-to-patient staffing ratios).

In Vermont, this is a gigantic victory for all Vermont workers, as it is the type of win that puts the "move" in the labor movement. Through the Justice For Healthcare Workers Campaign, we will continue to work with the Fletcher Allen nurses and other VT healthcare local unions to help healthcare workers throughout the state organize for their rights. We want to thank all of you who helped the Fletcher Allen nurses in this struggle for justice and quality patient care. I would love to mention names, but there are literally thousands of people who got involved in many ways.

I would like to share one message we received just before the settlement from someone involved in the Justice For Healthcare Workers Campaign:

"I'm unfortunately unable to attend the rally but I'll be there in spirit. We have an outpost of Fletcher Allen in our hospital here in Rutland (Dialysis Center). The chief of surgery asked me today, a full-time O.R. nurse, if there were a picket line in Rutland would I cross it to come to work. The emphatic answer is 'NO' "
---- in solidarity, Tisa Farrow, RN (Rutland Regional Medical Center Chief Steward, OPEIU, local 6, AFL-CIO).

Thanks to Tisa and so many others whose solidarity and support really made a difference!

James Haslam
Vermont Workers' Center, Director

NURSES CHEER SETTLEMENT OF A FAIR CONTRACT

Rally Celebrates the Beginning of a New Day at Fletcher Allen

On Saturday, an estimated 600 community members, local leaders, and nurses gathered together outside of the hospital to celebrate the long-desired settlement of a fair contract with the Fletcher Allen nurses' union.

"We are ecstatic at what we were able to achieve in these negotiations," said Jen Henry, RN, a member of the Bargaining Team. "Today, we can say that it is truly a new day at Fletcher Allen."

Settlement came in the early afternoon on Saturday, just a few hours before the rally, and after three days of informational picketing by the nurses drew an overwhelmingly positive community response. The nurses had been engaged in contract talks with the administration since December. The contract agreement was approved by the Bargaining Team at approximately one in the afternoon on Saturday after a round-the-clock bargaining session, and is expected to be approved by the full union membership in a final vote that will take place on a date in the near future that is yet to be determined.

"This contract will bring Fletcher Allen a long way towards becoming a world-class hospital," said Barbara Segal, RN, co-chair of the Bargaining Team. "We are incredibly happy for our patients, who can expect great things because of this."

Key changes to past Fletcher Allen policy in the contract include:

* Safe nurse-to-patient ratios, which will greatly improve the time that nurses have to spend with each patient;
* A ban on mandatory overtime, which will ensure that nurses are not forced to work grueling back-to-back shifts;
* often regardless of whether or not they had the correct certifications to perform all the necessary duties on that second unit; and
* An economic package that will improve the hospital's ability to recruit and retain qualified nurses in a time when a shortage of qualified nurses has created a highly competitive job market across the country.

"This day has been a long time in coming," said Steve Chamberlin, RN, co-chair of the Bargaining Team. "Finally, we nurses at Fletcher Allen will have the tools that we need to provide the quality and safety in care that our patients deserve. We congratulate the administration in coming to an agreement with us that is good for the patients, the nurses, and the community."

MORE INFO: Contact VT Workers: Center 802-229-0009 or the Fletcher Allen Nurses' Union, UPV/AFT Local 5221 at 802-657-4040. To learn more about the Justice For Healthcare Workers Campaign, email info@workerscenter.org

Universal Healthcare Now!

June 2003, Op-Ed in Rutland Herald and Times Argus

By Sue Lucas, RN, President of United Nurses & Allied Professionals Local 5109 at Copley Hospital

As someone whose job is to heal people when they are sick and keep them healthy, my heart aches because our healthcare system is not working. We need a universal health care system that covers everybody, not one which is becoming too expensive for most of us.

Simply put, our health care system is in a crisis state. We all know some of the obvious reasons, but as a Registered Nurse, I am acutely aware of the damaging working conditions which are actually forcing good, caring medical personnel out of the industry, making a bad situation all that much worse. I take pride in the level of care I can give those patients I am responsible for, and who are sick and in need. But all too often, systematic short staffing compromises our ability to provide the quality of care we were trained to do.

And I know of the growing number of people who are sick or hurt that don’t even make it in to see us! There are over 40 million people in the United States who do not have health insurance of any kind. There are tens of millions more who are underinsured. For those of us who do have health insurance, premiums are escalating rapidly, with employers increasingly passing the costs on to workers. Employers are seeking to insulate their profits from the health care crisis by forcing their workers to pick up the tab. According to a survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation, employee premium contributions for single coverage grew by almost 27 percent on average and for family coverage by 16 percent from 2001 to 2002, when total premiums for job-based coverage grew by 12.7 percent.

The problems are both local and national. Last November, Fairbanks Scales in St. Johnsbury provoked a two-week strike by demanding drastic increases in workers' contributions towards health insurance premiums. In January, workers at General Electric struck for 2 days over the issue of health insurance - the first nationwide strike at GE since 1969. But, while companies like GE and Verizon are hugely profitable and could easily afford to absorb increased health insurance costs, many smaller, non-profit and public employers with limited budgets are caught between the rock of increasing costs and the hard place of workers who simply cannot afford to contribute any more out of their own pockets.

In our beautiful state, the state programs that act as band-aids on our broken health care system - VHAP and Dr. Dynasaur - are threatened because of the government budget crisis. As premium contributions and co-pays for these programs rise, their beneficiaries - most of whom are children - will forego needed preventative care. From my work, I see firsthand that people who do without preventative care are more likely to end up in the emergency room. This drives up the total costs for the system. And they don’t come in for sniffles.

We need universal coverage of health care. Not only because health care is a basic right that should be available to everyone, but also because it makes financial sense. The General Accounting Office in 1991 stated that, "If the United States were to shift to a system of universal coverage and a single payer with the authority to oversee the healthcare system, the savings in administrative costs would be more than enough to offset the expense of universal coverage."

The movement to fix the health care system and develop one which is universal is growing. Ohio Congressman and Presidential Candidate, Dennis Kucinich, has introduced a universal healthcare plan. Locally, last September, over a thousand Vermonters flooded Montpelier for a universal health care rally called Prescription For Change. A new coalition - the Coalition for Vermont Universal Healthcare System – is working to bring more groups in Vermont together to make a new healthcare system happen.

Seeing the ills of the current approach first hand, day in and day out, health care workers are also organizing to fix the current system and move to one which treats people as patients, not consumers. In the face of the corrupt and misguided administration at Vermont’s largest medical institution, the RNs at Fletcher Allen Health Care have formed a union and are now bargaining a contract which will prioritize quality patient care over profits. (Community members are invited to join them as they rally for a fair contract at Fletcher Allen’s main entrance on Colchester Avenue on June 21st at 3:30 P.M.) We nurses have also begun a Justice for Healthcare Workers campaign with the Vermont Workers’ Center. Our goal is to unite healthcare workers across the state in an effort to pass quality patient care legislation and support healthcare workers’ ability to organize unions across the state.

On June 5th, the workers at GE, Verizon, and other workplaces throughout New England are holding a Health Care for All Action Day and will wear stickers saying “Health Care For All: No Cuts in Benefits or Services.” As part of this action day, the factory workers who are members of UE Local 234 and work at Fairbanks Scales in St. Johnsbury will work with other community groups to hold a vigil for universal healthcare at 4 P.M. A movement of workers, the uninsured, seniors, small business owners and health care providers is beginning to build strength. We need to stand together to demand a solution to fix a broken system and provide affordable quality healthcare for us all.

Sue Lucas, RN is the president of United Nurses & Allied Professionals Local 5109 at Copley Hospital and helps coordinate the Justice For Healthcare Workers Campaign of the Vermont Workers’ Center. With questions or comments call 802-229-0009 or email info [at] workerscenter [dot] org.

Livable Wage Rally Speech

From Livable Wage March and Rally, April 12, 2003

By Cindy Bubrouski
Hello! I'm Cindy Bubrouski. I'm an Instructional Assistant at Montpelier High School and have worked in that district for six years. I am also the president and chief negotiator of our VTNEA local, the Montpelier Educational Support Staff Association.

Instructional Assistants (or paraprofessionals) perform a wide variety of educational support services, from providing individual and small group instruction, to personal care. Every day, we do our best to educate students who are cognitively, physically, emotionally, or behaviorally challenged. Many of us are trained in facilitative communication, or have received specialized training to teach reading and writing. Many of us assist classroom teachers, and many of us provide direct instruction. All of us know how challenging our jobs are.

Historically, school districts have seen fit to devalue our work. For too long we have been an invisible workforce, the "orphans" of the school districts. Paraprofessionals across the state have been caught up in a web of low wages, and nonexistent or unaffordable healthcare benefits. We have seen our job responsibilities continue to grow, but not our wages and benefits.

Most school districts still offer starting wages more than $3.00 an hour BELOW the State of Vermont's Joint Fiscal Office's newest 2003 Livable Wage figure of $11.58 an hour. Keep in mind, that figure represents a single person working a full-year, and receiving employer- assisted health benefits. Most paras are not offered affordable health benefits, and are forced to rely on Vermont's public assistance services. This is a disgrace, and a slap in the face to hardworking, dedicated educators. Who ends up paying for the benefits that school districts withhold from their paraprofessionals? We all do!

A 1995 Occupational Wages report, from the Central Vermont Chamber of Commerce, illustrates how paraprofessional hourly wages have not kept pace with inflation. The average wage for a "teacher's aide" in 1995 was $8.60. That was almost 8 years ago! Now I ask you, how many of your school districts still pay their paras that $8.60 (or less) as a starting wage? It's shameful! Paraprofessionals deserve a livable wage that provides for the basic necessities!

What can we do? Friends, first of all, if your district's paras aren't organized, form an association and get on board with VTNEA! It is time to head to the collective bargaining table with your school board! If you are already organized, remember this above all else when you begin bargaining, START WITH THE LIVABLE WAGE AS YOUR BASE! $11.58! Know that what you settle for will not only effect your district's paraprofessionals, but will reverberate with every paraprofessional statewide. Stay strong. Begin and continue Livable Wage campaigns in your districts. Support one another. We are all in this together. As long as one paraprofessional earns a poverty wage, we are ALL the poorer for it! Vermont's school support staff deserve a respectable, livable wage!

Thank you.

Cindy Bubrouski is president of the Montpelier Educational Support Staff Association

The Livable Wage Battle Hymn

(to the tune of "Battle Hymn of the Republic")

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the day
When we won't just work for peanuts
We will work for decent pay
So it's time to stop complaining
And draw action from our rage
In the fight for a livable wage

CHORUS:
Come, let's join the great big chorus
No one else will do it for us
And we know we'll win the day
In our fight for decent pay
Cause the union makes us strong

We know our work is valuable
Our bosses know it too
And the workers who we stand beside
Depend on what we do
In our jobs and our communities
We're just like super glue
Cause the union makes us strong

CHORUS

Well they say the times are tough out there
That taxes are too high
But we also pay those taxes
And watch health bills go sky-high
We're not asking for a free lunch
But we want our piece of pie
And the union makes us strong

CHORUS

(sung at April 12, 2003 Livable Wage March in Burlington)

Vermonters Need Livable Wages and a Fair Economy

April, 2003 Op-Ed in Burlington Free Press

By James Haslam, Director, Vermont Workers' Center

Vermont's working people are facing the greatest economic crisis in recent memory. Workers in Vermont and around the country are working harder, longer, and more productively than ever before, and yet we are being laid-off by profitable companies, asked to shoulder the costs and risks of health care, and watching our retirement savings being ripped off by unscrupulous corporate criminals. And while failing corporations like the airlines get bailed out with public money, laid-off workers whose unemployment benefits have run out see only cuts to the social programs that help us heat our homes, afford our rent, and feed our children.

In the midst of all these problems, working people need for our political and community leaders to stand up and confront this recession with programs and policies that make the lives of workers better, not worse. We need economic stimulus that puts money in the pockets of workers, who will spend it and boost the local economy, rather than the pockets of the very wealthiest members of our society. We need a universal health care system which covers everyone rather than continued attempts to shift the costs and risks of health care onto workers. And we need an adequate social safety net so that economic downturns do not push workers into bankruptcy, homelessness and despair.

During the Great Depression, workers, seniors and religious leaders stood up to demand that the government confront the economic crisis. The resulting legislation - Social Security, the Fair Labor Standards Act (which created the minimum wage), and the National Labor Relations Act (which legalized collective bargaining) - combined with public works spending, came to be known as the New Deal. The New Deal eased the immediate crisis by putting money in workers' pockets, pushed the country toward recovery, and insured that recovery, when in came, benefited working people.

Now is the time for working people and community members to mobilize to demand change. We need to support workers in the K-12 schools, at our nursing homes, hospitals, universities and grocery stores, who are standing up for livable wages. We need to insist that our political leaders work towards a fair economy by creating livable wage jobs, guaranteeing health care for all, and preserving an adequate social safety net. Come to the March for Livable Wages and a Fair Economy in Burlington on April 12th, because united, we can make our economy a fair economy for all.

Vermont Workers' Center Resolution Against the War

Adopted at 1/18/03 Steering Committee Meeting

WHEREAS, the Vermont Workers' Center has, in its mission, already resolved to fight for economic justice for all workers; and,

WHEREAS, the burdens and dangers of war would fall disproportionately on working people, the poor, and people of color, both at home and abroad; and

WHEREAS, we have no quarrel with the working-class in Iraq who will suffer most, having already suffered long under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein and sanctions; and

WHEREAS, under the ongoing war on terrorism, corporate interests received taxpayer bailouts and tax cuts, yet ordinary workers face serious economic problems that are not addressed; job losses, falling wages, health-care insecurity, pension and 401k losses; and

WHEREAS, the war will dramatically increase military spending. Vermont's share is estimated now at $143 million. The cost of the war necessitates cuts in essential services; education, housing, social security, unemployment benefits, healthcare, transportation, clean water and air, all at a time when our tax dollars could be used for retraining and jobs, and to plug local deficits caused by tax cuts.

WHEREAS, the war covers for corporate corruption and union-busting; the federal government's use of Taft-Hartley against the ILWU, the privatization of public jobs (AFGE) under the Homeland Security Act, and other offenses to the right of workers to protest, organize, and strike; and

WHEREAS, workers responded to 9/11 with heroism, and have always responded with the public at heart. The USA PATRIOT act and similar measures invade privacy and expand government's ability to detain workers based on mere suspicion, to conduct telephone and internet surveillance and secret searches, and to define people engaged in political protest as "domestic terrorists". The TIA and TIPS programs will further scrutinize our economic and personal lives; and

WHEREAS, all of Vermont's Congressmen voted against this war, and the AFL-CIO's John Sweeney expressed concern about the motives for this war and its domestic components; and

WHEREAS, fear increases racism, and U.S. citizens feel no more secure after war in Afghanistan; and,

WHEREAS, there is no credible evidence linking Iraq to the 9/11 attacks; and

WHEREAS, we value the lives of our sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, who will have to fight in this war, more than control of Middle East oil; and,

WHEREAS, "pre-emptive", "unilateral" policies do not represent the necessary global perspective; genuine security will be achieved only by fighting world-wide for social and economic justice, therefore:

BE IT HEREBY RESOLVED that the Vermont Workers' Center publicly opposes the war on Iraq; and we urge supportive members and affiliates to get involved in local efforts to stop this war.

Labor Statement Against the War

At Montpelier Antiwar Rally, January 18, 2003

By Jonathan Kissam

Good afternoon.

I bring greeting on behalf of the national executive board of the United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America (UE). UE was the first national union to denounce this war, back in September, but we have been joined by many others in the trade union movement, including the 1.3-million member American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and dozens if not hundreds of local and regional labor organizations. Just last Saturday, over 100 trade unionists representing more than 2 million workers gathered in Chicago to found U.S. Labor Against the War. And just this morning, the Vermont Workers Center, a labor-community coalition including many Vermont unions such as the Vermont State Employees Association, the United Nurses and Allied Professionals at Copley Hospital, the Alliance@IBM and the Washington-Orange County Central Labor Council, passed a resolution against the war.

The mission of the labor movement is to fight for justice for working people. This war is a threat to the lives, the economic well-being, and the civil liberties of workers, both here and in Iraq, so we in the labor movement must speak out against it.

This war is a threat to our lives. The history of warfare is for the most part the history of some rich guy getting into an argument with some other rich guy about some stuff - land, oil - and then large numbers of working people have to go fight other working people who we really have no quarrel with. This war clearly fits the pattern - it's one unelected oil tycoon wanting to grab oil from another unelected oil tycoon. As UE has unequivocally stated, no one, not a single American and not a single Iraqi, should die to boost the profits of oil and military corporations.

This war is a threat to our economic well-being. Over the past year, we have witnessed a tidal wave of corporate corruption, as the con artists and kleptomaniacs in charge of corporations like Enron have looted their employee's retirement funds, laid off tens of thousands of workers, and rewarded themselves richly with stock options, golden parachutes, and the ill-gotten gains of insider trading. Meanwhile, Bush has skillfully used the threat of war with Iraq to distract the American public from this corporate malfeasance, and to prevent any meaningful reform. Furthermore, the costs of this war will preclude the federal spending we so desperately need for infrastructure and schools, and for rebuilding our manufacturing base -- investments that would provide real economic stimulus and put people back to work. And this war will push the economy even further into recession, while war spending draws money away from our already inadequate social safety net. It is criminal that in the richest country on earth, twelve percent of the population, including twelve million children, live in poverty, and it is doubly criminal that Bush is proposing to divert resources away from social spending to pay for an unjust war.

This war is a threat to our freedom. The assault on civil liberties is an integral part of this war, and part of that assault is a vicious attack on trade union rights. When workers being merged into the new Department of Homeland Security were excluding from collective bargaining rights and civil service protections, we were told that it was justified in the name of "national security." Last week, workers at the Transportation Security Administration were told, in effect, that the clause in the UN Declaration of Human Rights guaranteeing all workers the right to collective bargaining does not apply to them, again in the name of "national security." And last November, also citing "national security," the Bush administration used an injunction to force the west coast longshore workers to work essentially under government supervision, stripping workers in this highly dangerous industry of their rights to take collective action to protect their own safety, life and limb. Despite all this, there is hope. If we stand together, we can stop this war. If we stand together, we can build a peaceful and just tomorrow.

No War on Iraq!
Fight for a Fair Economy!
Defend Our Civil Liberties!

Thank you.

Jonathan Kissam is Secretary-Treasurer of District 2 of the United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America (UE)

Labor Struggles Are Community Struggles

Op-Ed In the Rutland Herald and Times Argus newspapers, December 2002

By James Haslam

When workers organize to collectively bargain fair wages, benefits, and safe working conditions they are exercising a basic and important human right. They are struggling for dignity and justice at work, but also in the local community.

“Working conditions are living conditions. Healthy and safe workplaces that compensate fairly, raise the standard of living in our communities,” says Dan Brush, President of GCIU 745c, the union at Capital City Press in Barre. “The effects of poverty, such as crime, domestic violence, and untreated illness, are devastating to a healthy community. I strongly believe that unions make communities better places to live.”

The connections between people organizing unions and the benefits to greater society are endless. Unions struggled for many benefits we now take for granted, such as the eight-hour-day, the minimum wage, social security, the end of child labor and the public school system. In Vermont, we have some more recent examples.

In August of 2000, over a hundred nursing home workers organized a union at Berlin Health & Rehabilitation Center (BH&RC) for livable wages and working conditions, but also for the ability to provide proper care. In doing so they created a public debate about proper staffing, and shed light on industry-wide problems. So the state agencies investigated, and because of those members, regulatory steps have begun to assure proper staffing in Vermont’s nursing homes. Quality care also united over a thousand Registered Nurses at Fletcher Allen Health Care (FAHC) to form a union in October. We’re all better off now that nurses have a voice with management.

But organizing isn’t easy. The laws, which supposedly protect our right to organize, are weak and poorly enforced. Employers harass, misinform and intimidate to create confusion to scare their employees from organizing. It’s a $300-million a year industry consulting corporations to use these coercive tactics. Some of the biggest national union-busting firms have been involved in local organizing campaigns. BH&RC hired Jackson & Lewis out of Connecticut (who are holding a seminar on “How to Stay Union-free” for healthcare employers throughout Vermont and New Hampshire on December 12th in White River Junction at Hotel Coolidge where dozens of community members plan to protest this activity in our community). FAHC hired Adams, Haskell, Nash & Sheridan from Kentucky. Both corporations waste hundreds of thousands of dollars on these union-busters whose sole job to thwart workers from organizing. To succeed despite these obstacles, workers need support from the community.

“The community support we got made a tremendous difference,” says Jennifer Henry, RN at Fletcher Allen. “Knowing so many people were behind us went a long way saying what we were doing was right and we could win.” [On October 3 & 4, the RN’s voted almost 2-to-1 to form a union despite the expensive campaign waged against them.]

Unionized workers bargain for the whole job market. For instance, the wage increases and benefits the Burlington nurses negotiate will positively affect other healthcare workers throughout Vermont. With their ability to negotiate, manufacturing unions raise the bar for the rest in the industry. And don’t believe the myth that by forming a union and bargaining forces corporations to relocate out of Vermont. That’s just a fear tactic from employers who want to retain the power to dictate everything. Statistically, non-union plants move more often than union plants.

“We are the absolute last people who want to see our plant move,” says Bob South, President of UE Local 234, the union at Fairbanks Scales in St. Johnsbury. “If the company is hurting financially, we invite them to open the books so we can be part of the discussion of how to keep things running, and still get treated fairly. We pray that they stay, but if they leave, we’re better off having a union to negotiate the terms of a severance package.”

In our system, unions are the best way to fight for economic justice and safe working conditions. And as wealth disparity continues to grow, it becomes harder to find good jobs in Vermont and more difficult to support families. We have to fight back as a community.

Recently the religious community has gotten involved in labor struggles, many issuing teachings on the topic like the following from the Roman Catholic Church:

“The Church fully supports the rights of workers to form unions or other associations to secure their rights to fair wages and working conditions. This is a specific application of the more general right to associate…No one may deny the right to organize without attacking human dignity itself. Therefore, we firmly oppose organized efforts, such as those regrettably seen in this country, to break existing unions or prevent workers from organizing.”

The community makes a difference. Just because laws that protect workers are inadequate, it doesn’t mean we have to tolerate intimidating corporate behavior. If neighbors, friends and congregations stand together with workers we can make union-busting campaigns unacceptable. We can hold corporations accountable to the values we hold dear - democracy, freedom and equality. Labor struggles are community struggles and we all need to get involved.

James Haslam is the director of the Vermont Workers’ Center, a community organization committed to fighting for workers’ rights. With questions or comments contact 802-229-0009 or info [at] workerscenter [dot] org

Workers' Center Director Receives Top Labor Award

VT AFL-CIO Press Release, October 9, 2002

Burlington - At the Vermont State Labor Council AFL-CIO Convention Saturday, September 14th James Haslam was awarded the Lena Brown Labor Award, Vermont's top labor award. Haslam is the Executive Director of the Vermont Workers' Center. Past recipients of this prestigious award include longtime labor supporter and Ludlow state legislator John Murphy and current US Congressman Bernard Sanders.

"James has brought a lot of energy and a tremendous amount of commitment to the struggle for justice for the working people of Vermont," said Ron Pickering, President of the State Federation of Labor. "The work that he and so many other great worker activists are doing at the Vermont Workers' Center has really made a huge impact on the labor movement in this state. Whether it's educating people on economic issues effecting Vermonters, encouraging solidarity amongst all different types of workers throughout the state or fighting the abuses of workers, the Workers' Center has made a crucial difference in many of our lives."

The Lena Brown Labor Award was established to honor the person that has gone above and beyond in their commitment to workers in this state. It is named in honor of Lena Brown, who signed the original charter for the State Labor Council and committed her life to the labor movement in Vermont.

The Vermont Workers' Center was established in 1996 and has an office in Montpelier. It is a non-profit community organization committed to fighting for workers' rights and economic justice. The Vermont Workers' Center is a coalition of labor and community organizations and they are part of a national workers' rights campaign called Jobs with Justice. The work of the organization is mostly done by volunteers, who are comprised of union and non-union Vermonters who work together in the struggle for fairness and justice. They operate the Vermont Workers' Rights Hotline, which is toll-free 866-229-0009.

The Struggle

A poem dedicated to the Steering Committee of the Vermont Workers' Center and performed at the 2nd Annual Burlington Labor Day Weekend Parade & Picnic at Battery Park August 31, 2002.

By James Haslam

All these plant closings keep going down.
Town after town,
These Corporations just ain't foolin' around.
Can you hear the sound, of that last closing bell ringing?
'Cause the fat woman has been singing
Farewell to Kimberly-Clark, Book Press, Ethan Allen, Stanley Tools
And many more that are going down because of these free trade rules.
Stanley Tools, who played Vermonters like fools.
We made them money for 96 years!
Shaftsbury was Stanley's most profitable plant in the Northern Hemisphere,
But they go to China and leave us in tears.
Folks be poaching deers to put food on the table,
And now the strong and the able
Have no means
As a result of these free market schemes
These nightmares that were American Dreams
The Many struggle for bread, but you betcha the Few got their cream.
Doesn't it steam ya, that last year IBM's CEO Sam Palmisano had $70 million dollar payoff
And now they're talking about yet another IBM layoff.
Friends this is way-off
We try to form unions, our own organizations
And we are met with brutalization
Corporations are against civilization.
So let's ask the question
Why - is our economy run as a private tyranny
When we are suppose to live in a Democracy?
We can still all remember that word, right?
Democracy?
When it works for you
And it works for me
It works for us
And we means we.
'Cause if we keep letting the golfing crowd do the math
They'll have us all working in retail sales, as cashiers or as waitstaff
And I don't think we want that to be our epitaph
Because as we feel the wrath of Corporate power
And folks are trying to get by on $6.25 an hour.
In this shower of injustice, this tidal wave of greed
When Corporate profits come before human need..
We can read the writing on the wall
We're struggling now, and even if our victories are small
We're beginning to learn that an injury to one IS and injury to all.
We're beginning to understand that Solidarity is more than just a word, and we can feel it in our bones.
And as this movement grows, we go out on the streets, knock on doors, pickup phones..
And no matter our skin tones, sexual preferences, gender or religion
Together, workers united, damn! We can win!

Vermont's Workers Need to Protect Their Rights

August 2002

By Dawn Stanger, Vermont Workers Center Steering Committee Member

It's only natural for employers to seek concessions from workers. Improvements in working conditions, wages, benefits and Vermont's environment -- all undermine profits.

The only way this system becomes accountable is when workers struggle to get their fair share. We cannot sit back and accept what we're "given." Our profit-seeking system, by its very nature, demands that employers manipulate accounting and throw money into politics, corrupting our "democracy" and getting special favors.

If workers don't struggle against it, the system spits them out, as Enroners and IBMers now see. In a capitalist economy, the people who run it are first and foremost trying to get rich and things like the rights of workers just get in the way.

Historically, there has been only one way for workers to increase their rights and gain power -- uniting and acting together. As workers, when we have the ability to make collective, democratic decisions and act in all of our interests, we can make improvements for all of us.

Bosses call unions "third parties," insinuating outside forces, but unions are really a second party. When we're organized, we have the right to sit down and bargain our conditions, not have them imposed on us. Unions are democratic, and union members have a voice in how they run their organization and they often argue about what is the best thing for them to do. And this is the sort of thing everybody deserves, to have democratic rights in all aspects of our lives.

CEO pay is now a ridiculous 600 times the average worker's pay in the United States. Income and wealth disparity between the rich and the rest of us is the worst it's ever been. Our health-care, with 44 million Americans uncovered and sky-rocketing rates, has hit rock-bottom. If workers' concerns were addressed in politics, we'd already have universal health care like all the other civilized nations do. When corporate excess reaches the present level, and people mistakenly believe that the stock market reflects workers' goals, we've got big trouble.

We're the Vermonters getting laid off and struggling to get by. Rich people might go on fewer vacations, but workers have to make tough choices between things such as clothes for our kids, medication, food and heat. But the fact is we do have to worry about those things, while the rich are still getting richer.

For years there has been an attack on our living standards -- the top 5 percent are ripping us off. They're avoiding taxes, moving companies to other countries, and cheating us out of our old-age money. We need to get over those stupid barriers between workers, white-collar, blue-collar stuff, union, non-union, and get our act together. Employers play hardball and our team has gotten soft.

I write as a member of the Vermont Workers' Center. I load trucks for a living. I've become militant with good reason. I've spoken to hundreds of Vermonters on our Workers' Rights Hotline. There is little fairness in a system manipulated by transnational corporations.

The Workers Center and Vermont's labor unions will not tolerate this disparity in our communities and we are groups of workers fighting back

We invite all workers in Vermont to come celebrate the fact that we all trudge off to work each day, dependably, all year long, to earn a living, making the economic wheels of our state turn. Gathering at 11 a.m. Saturday we're parading from H.O. Wheeler in Burlington's North End to Battery Park, then throwing a free picnic for all who join us.

Vermont's workers need to take back our state from the bosses. Let's start by taking back Labor Day Weekend for workers.

Dawn Stanger is a Teamster who lives in Underhill and is a steering committee member of the Vermont Workers' Center. For more information about the Labor March and Picnic, call 863-2345, Ext. 8. For the Vermont Workers' Rights Hotline, call toll-free (866) 229-0009.

Free Trade Is Bad For Everybody

(That is, except Executives and Shareholders of Mega Corporations)

Op-Ed in Rutland Herald, August 2002
by James Haslam

On August 6th the Rutland Herald ran an editorial "Back On Track" which began "President Bush signed legislation Tuesday giving him authority to negotiate international trade agreements without interference from Congress." The editorial went on to say that, "Because of the benefits that free trade brings to the economies of both the United States and its trading partners, it is good for the president to have that authority. " The people who would most agree with that opinion are the heads of multinational corporations. However, for the majority of people in Vermont, and in the US, and the rest of the world - the "free trade" agreements like NAFTA and Free Trade Area of the Americas are almost entirely destructive.

"Free trade" policies simply allow corporations to freely access cheaper labor markets. Manufacturing facilities are moved to poorer nations - which have miniscule wages, often terrible working conditions and far fewer environmental regulations. Often these conditions result from direct interference by the US government, international financial institutions (such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund) and/or the multinational corporations themselves.

The idea that President Bush will be able to solely negotiate international free trade agreements - is downright terrifying. What the editorial calls "interference from Congress" is basically the way our country's Constitution is meant to work. Through our elected representatives we have some degree of democratic control on major policies. What Bush and this paper are supporting is almost completely undemocratic.

In Vermont we are fortunate to have a representative in Washington who actually acts in the interest of the majority of Vermonters - working people. Rep. Bernie Sanders has consistently stood up for working Vermonters, and that's a big deal.

Congressman Sanders recently released a report "The Real Cost of 'Free Trade'", which includes statistics that promoters of free trade policies downplay, if not ignore. For instance, the net loss of jobs as a result of these "free trade" policies from 1994-2000 totaled over 6,000 jobs in Vermont and over 3 million nationally. Ask the folks who feel free trade firsthand what they think of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Families devastated by layoffs at Shaftsbury's Stanley Tools, Bennington's Johnson Controls, Orleans' Ethan Allen, Newport's Bogner, St. Johnsbury's Sheftex, and Springfield's Fair-Rite Products, Cone Blanchard, and Fellows Corporation - just to name a few.

Many of these jobs were high paying blue-collar jobs, and as they leave Vermont they are being replaced with low-wage, often part-time service sector jobs. According to a report by the Vermont Department of Employment and Training the three fastest growing occupational titles through 2005 will be waiters/waitresses, retail sales and cashiers. In addition to being low-paying, these positions unfortunately also often come without any benefits. Is this the future free trade offers Vermont?

What we need are trade policies that that make sense for people and the environment. The way they are currently crafted is solely for corporate stockholder profits. The editorial rightfully pointed out the devastating results of "doctrinaire loyalty to the tenets of free trade" in Russia and Argentina. But it also stated "Bush has carried out several shamefully political acts of protectionism". Confusingly enough, it says on one hand Bush supports free trade, which is somehow good unless left completely "free", but on the other hand Bush is wrong for handpicking corporations to protect.

But let's be clear, the corporations that basically run our country have never really wanted "free trade". What they have wanted is to make as much money as possible, whatever the costs. Sometimes this means opening foreign labor and natural resource markets to corporate exploitation under the guise of "free trade", no matter the effect on the populations at home or abroad. But in other instances, making as much money as possible means going completely against free trade policies, for example, by having major domestic industries such as aerospace, computer technology and pharmaceuticals, be highly subsidized by the public while profits go to private shareholders.

The editorial called for something they termed "free trade-plus", which puts some fetters on corporations by including some sort of basic labor and environmental standards. Others call this crazy idea - "fair trade". And fair trade is exactly what Rep. Sanders has been fighting for. The good news is that Vermonters and millions of people around the world are joining him in the struggle to change our economy from one focused on corporate profit, to one that puts people first.

James Haslam is the Director of the Vermont Workers' Center, a community organization committed to fighting for workers' rights. With questions or comments contact 802-229-0009 or info [at] workerscenter [dot] org.

Three commentaries on the state budget crisis

Three commentaries by Workers' Center Steering Committee member Dawn Stanger on the state budget crisis. An Op-ed from the Burlington Free Press, a "That's the Way I See It" commentary from WNCS, and a statement from a February 28, 2002 rally against State Budget Cuts. All February 2002.

Op-ed in the Burlington Free Press

I just read about this 'new' proposal to avoid state service cuts by taxing the rich more than the rest of us. Every time someone raises the idea of progressive taxes, the argument is immediately countered with, "the government's doesn't have the right to ask more from the rich." I gotta ask, What kind of patriotism is it, that the rich don't feel an obligation to pay more? Weren't they raised right? Us workers were asked to spend like crazy after 9/11 (even as we were getting laid off with the highest-ever level of personal debt). And this government is our government; it has whatever rights we give it, at least in theory. Listen, is it unfair to tax childless people for schools? Many think so, but not me, though I have no kids. All of us benefit when we have smart kids in our communities. I'm willing to pay because it keeps crime down, invigorates life in my town, and, it's just....well....ethical. I was raised to do my part to better society. Often, Vermonters who use state services don't get paid enough at work or have healthcare coverage. What the state gives them is really a subsidy of sorts for their employers who won't pay livable wages. I heard Bernie Sanders' talk at the AFL-CIO's C.O.P.E. Conference last Sunday, and he urged all union members to be more active, and to bring into our discussions the question of just what our country's economic 'values' really should be. CEO pay is 531 times the average worker's pay. Hourly wages have dropped for decades. Most of us realize corporations have manipulated our government by lobbying, but we don't know the half of it. Bernie said there are 600 lobbyists in Washington to cover 535 reps. ENRON didn't pay a cent in taxes, and somehow still received refunds. 40% of Bush's tax cuts will go to the top 1%, those of us lucky enough to earn more than $350,000 a year. I think everybody better take a long, hard look our democracy lately. It's a damned auction. I want government to curb the excesses of big money. The state should tax capital gains at a higher rate than earned income. After all, how many hours do you have to work a week to earn interest. Does the work ethic only apply to welfare recipients?

Look, I make $20,000 a year loading trucks, and when ENRON pays less tax than me the system is messed up. And ENRON'S nasty policies were not just theirs, there's cut-throat atmospheres in many businesses. It's encouraged. Dog eat dog capitalism. I was disgusted to see a flag draped across ENRON's headquarters on t.v. Corporations have sneakily shifted their share of our country's taxes to us over the last few decades. 1% of Americans now have more wealth than the other 90% of us. And the top dogs run the show. There's money all over our politicians, buying "access", favorable legislation, privatization, deregulation. And you know, Argentina was following our free market policies when her citizens decided they could no longer 'go along' with the system crushing them and rose up. In the 1890's, the excesses of robber barons energized U.S. citizens to reign in excessive wealth. Then, with fairer policies, our country rose up together, rich and poor both gaining. But recently, we lost our way again. We need the government's help more than ever now, since the new wealth is multi-national. I say, tax the hell out of the rich. Rescind the budget cuts. Raise the level of services for the recession and the layoffs. We allow these monied interests to drape themselves in our flag. Tell me again there's no class war. Time for the rich to pony up. Workers want bread, but we want roses too.

Well, we'll see how this goes...

"That's the Way I See It"

Is it a new idea to tax the rich more than other Vermonters? No. But.... isn't it a good idea?

The President wanted us to shop like crazy after 9/11, while workers were getting laid off with the highest-ever level of personal debt. Now Vermont is cutting state services because of the recession. Why can't we seem to understand that capitalism is cyclical, and save for downturns? After all, who benefited from that boom? Not us workers. Just what are Vermont's economic 'values'?

The idea of cutting state services when they're most needed is just plain stupid. Vermonters often don't get paid enough or have health insurance from their jobs. The state really subsidizes employers who won't pay livable wages. Over the last decades, corporations have shifted their tax burden to us. 1% of Americans now have more wealth than the bottom 40%. CEOs make, on average, 531 times what workers make. 40% of Bush's tax cuts go to those who earn more than $350,000 a year.

I think we all better take a long, hard look at our democracy. We need our government to control these wealthy interests, not to pander to them.

Listen, I load trucks for a living. When ENRON pays less tax than me, something's rotten. Cutthroat, dog-eat-dog practices have become part of our business culture, not just at Enron, but worldwide. Rich people just buy favorable legislation now- privatization, deregulation, all those "ations" that screw the rest of us. We've seen "trickle down" scams before and we're just not gonna buy it again.

Listen; is it fair to tax childless Vermonters for schools? I believe it is, though I don't have any kids. Education lessens crime, kids invigorate my town, and, it's just, well... ethical. It's a public good. What kind of patriotism is it, that the rich don't feel an obligation to pay more? I say tax capital gains at a higher rate than earned income, not lower. After all, how many hours do you work to earn interest? Does the work ethic only apply to welfare recipients?

You can tell me again and again there's no class war in the U.S..... I'll still say it's time for the rich to pony up. You know, Argentina was following U.S. economic policies when her citizens decided they could no longer 'go along' with the economic system crushing them. I say tax the rich, rescind any budget cuts, and raise the level of services during hard times. We must all rise together. Workers want bread, but we still want roses too.

I'm Dawn Stanger with the Vermont Worker's Center, and that's the way I see it.

Statement by Dawn Stanger
Spokesperson, Vermont Workers' Center
At Rally Against State Budget Cuts, February 28, 2002

The state is talking about cutting health care programs, education, and assistance for disabled Vermonters. We already under-fund things like childcare, adult education, and employment training.

Let's be clear: cutting state services when they're most needed is just plain stupid. Vermonters often don't get paid enough or have health insurance from their jobs as it is. And the state wants to make things worse?!!!

The state budget cuts are an attack on the majority of Vermonters. They are an attack on working Vermonters. Over the last decade, the rich have profited from tax cuts while regular Vermonters have seen their real wages go down. How did the state respond to this situation?

Instead of planning for harder times, the State gave away its surplus to the rich in two separate tax cuts. I think we all better take a long, hard look at our democracy. We need a government which serves the majority, not the rich.

Listen, I load trucks for a living. When ENRON pays less tax than me, something's rotten.

The solution to our budget problems is NOT laying off state employees. It is NOT more short staffing for state workers. It is NOT wage cuts for state employees.

Instead, we need to use rainy day funds. We need to reverse the state income tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. We need to have a more progressive income tax. We need to tax stocks and bonds the same we way we tax paychecks.

You can tell me again and again there's no class war in Vermont..... but there is. It's a war by the rich and state government on working people. I say tax the rich, take back the budget cuts, and keep our badly needed public services during hard times. We must all rise together.

Proposed Cuts Will Hurt All Vermonters

Op-Ed in Burlington Free Press, February 2002

By Tenaya Lafore, Vermont Workers Center Steering Committee Member

In his Jan. 22 budget speech, Gov. Howard Dean proposed major cuts to health care and other essential public programs. In doing so, the governor threatened to rob Vermonters of basic services, but claimed to make these recommendations for their sake.

In attempting to justify his slash-and-burn approach, he said that, "While we are sympathetic to the plight of those who will receive fewer state services, we must also do our best to help people who have lost their jobs get through these tough times." Dean implies that one group of vulnerable Vermonters -- those why rely on state assistance -- must pay for the economic security of another, laid-off workers.

He gives the false impression that Vermonters who utilize public services have no choice but to fight each other for their piece of a shrinking pie. Worse, it leads one to think that cuts will somehow help unemployed workers who are struggling to support their families. Finally, he directs attention away from the real and growing division in Vermont between the few who are profiting off the economy and the majority who are not.

The perception that budget cuts will only impact a small number of Vermonters is just not true. Whether they be Vermonters who rely on some form of state assistance, have been recently laid off or have school-aged kids, "those who will receive fewer state services" are just about everyone.

The most publicized cuts impact health care and education. But dozens of other already under-funded programs are being reduced, including public transportation, employment and training, child care, housing and community mental health. Extreme short-staffing levels, layoffs and possible wage cuts in many agencies mean compromised quality of services. They also threaten the safety and livelihood of thousands of public and publicly-funded workers.

Vermonters' property taxes will likely rise to pay the cost of services the state no longer supports, and of course this cost will be passed down to renters as well. All of this means Vermonters are being asked to pay for a budget "crisis" that could have been avoided and can be solved in other ways.

While legislators argue over which services to cut, the truth is that there is plenty of money to fund all needed programs. Two examples: By instituting a more progressive tax structure, like the "Snelling" tax of 1990 which taxed the wealthy at higher rates, the state itself has estimated that $130 million would be raised in 2002. In addition, by taxing stock market profits and other capital gains at the same rate as wages -- wages are currently taxed at a higher rate -- more than $25 million more would be available.

Because most new sources of revenue won't be available until next year, the state can and should use the Rainy Day Fund now. Only half of this fund is needed to reverse all cuts for this year. As recently reported, many other states are turning to the Rainy Day Fund to make it through the recession (Burlington Free Press, Feb. 5).

Do proposals like the ones described above place an unfair burden on the rich? Consider that for the past decade, the wealthy have benefited from tax cuts and preferential treatment for stocks and other unearned income while regular Vermonters have seen their real wages go down. For example, when the tax rate was decreased from 25 percent to 24 percent of the federal rate in 1999, the top 9 percent of Vermont households received over half of the $15 million in lost state revenue. This budget "crisis" didn't just happen -- the state spent the past decade giving away its surplus instead of planning for harder times. To balance the budget on the backs of families already suffering from the current recession, when the state has the option of using the Rainy Day Fund and raising revenue through fairer taxation, is inexcusable. Vermonters have the right to expect better leadership than that. There is no question that reversing the cuts and fully funding public programs is both feasible and necessary. The only question is whether or not legislators will choose to protect the economic security of all Vermonters.

Don't Balance the Budget on the Backs of Vermont Workers!

Vermont Workers' Center Statement on Budget Cuts, January 2002

We view the state budget cuts as an attack on the majority of Vermonters. There is no excuse for balancing the budget on the backs of those who are already suffering from the current recession when the State has the option of using the Rainy Day Fund and raising revenue through fairer taxation.

For the past decade, the rich have profited from tax cuts and preferential treatment for stocks and other unearned income while regular Vermonters have seen their real wages go down. Instead of planning for harder times, the State gave away its surplus to those who didn't need it in two separate tax cuts.

Now that harder times are here and Vermont is facing a deficit, the State has cut and threatens more cuts to programs that working people in our state rely on. The cuts most directly impact access to health care, education, and assistance for disabled Vermonters. Currently under-funded services in dozens of other areas, including employment and training, childcare, and adult education, are also being reduced. The cuts threaten the safety and livelihood of public and publicly-funded employees through extreme short-staffing levels, as well as potential layoffs and/or wage cuts. Most Vermonters' property taxes will likely rise to pay the cost of necessary services the State no longer supports. All of this means that Vermonters are now being asked to pay out of their own empty pockets for a budget crisis that could have been avoided, a budget crisis that can be solved in other ways.

We stand against any budget cuts to make up for the budget shortfall. There is plenty of money to pay for all needed public services, and Vermonters should not be forced to pay for bad fiscal decisions made by the State in the past. Instead, the State should take one or more of the following actions:

1. Tax unearned income at the same rate as earned income. Vermont is one of only three states that taxes capital gains (stocks, bonds, etc.) at a lower rate than earned income. Just taxing income that people don't work for at the same rate as income people work for would bring in $25 million/year.

2. Re-institute a more progressive income tax. The State should be increasing taxes on the rich who can afford paying more instead of workers who are most affected by the recession and face job loss throughout the state. During the last recession in 1991, Governor Richard Snelling instituted a progressive income tax that fell mostly on the wealthy. If the State were to institute the same tax structure now, the State of Vermont's Joint Fiscal Office itself estimates that $130 million would be raised.

3. Reverse state income tax cuts for wealthy and corporations. In 1999, Vermont decreased the state income tax from 25% to 24% of the federal tax rate. Well over half of the $15 million saved went to the top 9% of Vermont households, while 65% of households got only 14% of the money. Reversing this cut would bring in $19 million next year.

4. Use the Rainy Day Fund. Because the above actions would bring in revenue next year, money in reserve should be used this year. The State would need to use only half of the Rainy Day Fund to prevent all cuts to public programs.

We call on the Legislature to immediately reverse all budget cuts and fully fund public programs.

For-Profit Nursing Homes

By Tanya Waters, RN, Vermont Workers Steering Committee Member

For-profit nursing homes have always had their critics, those that say that it is fundamentally wrong for corporations to make profits from the sick and dying. While in Vermont we do not have any for-profit hospitals, two-thirds of our nursing homes are operated with the goal of making a profit. This year a study came out that confirms these critics' fears about for-profit nursing homes.

According to a joint study by Harvard University and the University of California in San Francisco, for-profit nursing homes are much more likely than their non-profit counterparts to be cited for deficient quality. The study showed that the quality of care was particularly poor at facilities that are part of nursing home chains. Virtually every nursing home in the country was analyzed as part of this study, which found that for-profit nursing homes were cited for deficient care 46.5% more frequently than non-profit nursing homes. Nursing homes that are part of for-profit chains were found to be even worse, and were cited for more "severe problems."

This report cites exactly the types of conditions reported by the workers at Berlin Health & Rehabilitation Center (BH&RC), in Berlin Vermont. BH&RC is part of a for-profit nursing home chain called CPL Subacute. CPL Subacute is the largest for-profit nursing home chain in Vermont and is owned by CPL Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT), the largest for-profit nursing home chain in Canada. REIT's are corporations that make their money by acquiring "income-producing properties." Unfortunately, in the minds of these profit-focused investors, nursing homes get included with the likes of shopping malls.

"When for-profit chains understaff their facilities and underpay their workers, the chain makes money but quality suffers," said Steffie Woolhandler, MD, MPH, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and co-author of the study. "The quality of care largely determines quality of life. Nursing homes care for many people too frail, sick and powerless to choose or even protest their care. It is unwise to entrust such vulnerable patients to profit-seeking firms."

In August of 2000, the nursing home workers at BH&RC organized a union so they could have a stronger voice in their workplace and therefore administer better care to the residents. Nursing homes often pay poverty wages to their primary care givers, Licensed Nurses' Aides (LNAs). This reality results in LNA turnover as high as 80-90% a year, which not only negatively effects care-giving, but severely limits the crucial human relationships which naturally form between the staff and residents. In another effort to lower costs and increase profits, nursing homes such as BH&RC are often critically understaffed.

In addition to the emotional nature of their roles, LNA's have one of the toughest physical jobs in health care. They dress, bathe, move and feed residents. Essentially, they take care of all the daily needs of people who aren't capable of caring for themselves. When staffing is low, workers don't have the time or resources to do their jobs. This situation greatly increases the chance that residents will develop bed sores, experience dangerous levels of dehydration or simply become lonely.

The sad irony of private nursing homes is that they are almost entirely publicly financed. Usually, over 80% of their revenue comes from taxpayer pockets, primarily Medicaid and Medicare. We are paying these companies to provide substandard care.

The fundamental problem with corporations running in nursing homes for profit is declared on CPL REIT's website directed to stockholders: "CPL REIT has two growth mandates: find and acquire the right investment properties, then operate them profitably." Clearly CPL-REIT and Berlin Health & Rehabilitation Center have forgotten that heir primary focus should be on caring for their residents, and providing their employees with all the tools that they need to do so.

Globalization Hurting Vermont

By James Haslam, Vermont Workers Center Director

It's become all-too-common that good jobs are leaving Vermont and getting shipped out of the country. Back in September, officials from Stanley Works announced they were shutting down their plant in Shaftsbury after 183 years. In what Stanley corporate officials from their Connecticut headquarters term "restructuring", 160 jobs were shipped to plants in Mexico, China and South Carolina. In the search for higher profits they are saying bye-bye to all their now unemployed workers and to the plant they bought in 1916 and which will be silent for the first time since 1817.

Companies like Stanley are leaving because of recent free trade agreements that have made it too enticing for them to stay put. Business leaders and policymakers always assure us of the positive effects average citizens will experience due to the "free trade" legislation such as NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), the recent Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China (PNTR) trade bill and the coming plans of Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). The reality of these trade agreements have been much different.

In fact, globalization and "free trade" is hurting most American working families, which means, its hurting most Vermonters. "Free trade" policies simply allow corporations to freely access cheaper labor markets. Manufacturing facilities are moved to poorer nations - which have miniscule wages, often terrible working conditions and far fewer environmental regulations.

The newest proposal of FTAA is the planned extension of NAFTA, or otherwise known as "NAFTA on steroids". The plan is to extend NAFTA to include every country in the Western Hemisphere other than Cuba. Not only does it include this geographic extension it will also allow corporations to reach into vast areas of public policy. Cheerleaders and pundits in the corporate media will tell us how great these deals are for us, because that is what they are paid to do. But if we are to really measure what the impact of this new trade deal, we have to look at where globalization is already taking us.

Another example of a longtime Vermont employer 'going global' is currently happening at Fairbanks Scale of St. Johnsbury. Last February, they eliminated over ten percent of their workers as a result of finding cheaper labor overseas. The company, which has been well-known for years for its high quality industrial scales, has recently begun shipping in pre-cut steel kits from China and switched to Malaysian produced plastic for some of their scales. When Fairbanks was considering replacing some steel with plastic, workers wanted to produce the plastic locally. But, the company said it would not make business sense. In Vermont, companies have to consider federal and state environmental standards, in addition to paying semi-adequate wages, both of which are of relatively little concern in Malaysia.

In 1999, Black Diamond Sportswear in Barre laid off almost half of its workforce due to the favorable overseas labor force. When the company decided that to remain competitive they had to have all their garments sown by contractors twenty-five Vermonters lost their jobs. Owner Gary Guggemos explained, "Due to foreign imports it wasn't cost effective to have the sowing done in Vermont. With the less expensive labor in the Orient it wasn't in our interests."

Bijur Lubricating Corporation in Bennington learned about this cheap labor market years ago. In the late seventies Bijur had about 230 workers in manufacturing, but in the early eighties they opened up a plant in China and soon after another in Ireland. There are currently only nineteen workers in Bennington, eight of which work in the warehouse handling all the goods coming in from the overseas plants.

Bijur is not the only company in Bennington which has found it more profitable to move jobs to poorer countries. As a result of NAFTA, in 1994 Johnson Controls Inc. laid-off 331workers when they packed up and moved shop to Mexico. And jobs are still being sent to Mexico. Tensolite, a company in Essex Junction which assembles fiber optic cables, will be shutting their doors on over 150 employees this winter as they too shift production south of the border.

Capital City Press, with locations in Montpelier and Barre, is Vermont's last large-scale book printer. While there has been no evidence of layoffs from using foreign labor, that is where much of the new work is headed. Once again, the company has begun using more and more contractors from cheaper labor markets, in this case Manila. Dan Brush, who is the union president at Capital City, says that there are other alternatives than panning the globe for the cheapest labor that can be had. "If companies keep a long-time workforce which is unionized and well-trained there are tremendous efficiency advantages over contracting work out to the lowest bidder where the quality will suffer. The company would benefit more from the higher productivity."

As these high paying jobs leave Vermont they are being replaced with low-wage, often part-time service sector jobs. According to a report by the Vermont Department of Employment and Training the three fastest growing occupational titles through 2005 will be waitstaff, retail sales and cashiers. In addition to being low-paying, these positions unfortunately also often come without any benefits.

The results of globalization are actually quite clear. Wall Street gains. Vermont loses. Corporate profits rise. Workers suffer. Vermont loses because the families are finding it harder and harder to make ends meet. On top of the loss of jobs, the corporate flight to the South suppresses wages here within the companies that stay. And not only are the workers here suffering, the workers they are being replaced with suffer as they are subjected to the often horrible health and safety conditions. The jobs usually are only moved to countries where the political situations are such that the workers must work for ridiculously low pay while they often endure terrible "sweatshop" working conditions. Often these political conditions result directly from US Imperialism, which includes; interference by the US government, international financial institutions, multinational corporations themselves, and of course, the lovely foreign trade agreements.

Brush commented, "US corporations are exploiting the workers in these countries. What they are doing is really heartless. We must work in solidarity with workers there. If US companies are in these countries we must help them organize. We must understand that we both have the same interests."

The sad part is that most of these businesses are not leaving because they are losing money, in fact, operations like Stanley Works were highly profitable. As citizens and consumers we cannot let employers simply "pull-out" - leaving families, communities and local economies ruined in their wake. We must fight to retain good paying jobs here in Vermont. It is time that we demand that the products we buy are made by workers who get treated fairly. Whether the goods are made in St. Johnsbury or Jakarta, the workers should have safe workplaces and receive living wages.

We must also stop FTAA from becoming implemented. This April 20-22, the third Summit of the Americas meeting will be taking place in Quebec City (the previous two Summits were held in Miami (1994) and Santiago (1998)). Here leaders from all thirty-four nations in the Western Hemisphere (except Cuba) will gather to discuss amongst other things, the proposed FTAA agreement. As thousands of delegates, media and corporate representatives gather to attend this event, thousands of others from around the world will be coming to protest it (this is planned to be the largest security and police operation in Canadian history.) With NAFTA we saw US employers bolt across the border hurting workers here while their Mexican counterparts saw their productivity rise as wages plummeted. We must not let this happen again. It is time for the people to come before the profits.

If you would like to join other Vermonters going to Quebec City for these events on April 21st or if you have any questions, you can contact The Vermont Workers' Center at 802-229-0009 or email: info [at] workerscenter [dot] org