Vermont State Labor Council, AFL-CIO

 

Violence Has No Place in the Workplace

Patt Moon-Updike wanted to be a nurse since she was 9 years old.

Amid Game Industry Layoffs, AFL-CIO Says It’s Time for Workers to Organize

On Feb. 15, just days after massive layoffs at Activision Blizzard, the AFL-CIO issued a powerful public statement of support to game developers in the United States. Its message, published in an open letter at Kotaku, was both simple and profound.

Now That Government is Funded, Here is What Workers Want to see

Last year, in communities all across the country, millions of Americans mobilized and called for an economy that works for all of us.

Number of Workers Striking in 2018 the Most in Three Decades

More workers were involved in strikes and other labor disputes in 2018 than at any point in the past three decades, fueled by widespread teacher protests last spring, according to data releas

Mortgages for Union Families

Union Plus Mortgage Company is owned by the AFL-CIO Union Privilege and a group of unions.

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Death on the Job: The Toll of Neglect, 2019

PowerTools

A resource for union members and organizers.

Defend and Resist

A toolkit for organizers and advocates on workplace raids and audits.

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The Soul of a Union Man

I was raised in a company house, in a company town, where the miners had to buy their own oilers – that is, rubber coveralls – drill bits, and other tools at the company store.

That company, Inco Limited, the world’s leading producer of nickel for most of the 20th century, controlled the town of Sudbury, Ontario, but never succeeded in owning the souls of the men and women who lived and worked there.

That’s because these were union men and women: self-possessed, a little rowdy, and well aware that puny pleas from individual workers fall on deaf corporate ears.

One Year Later, Janus Decision Still Hasn’t Hurt Unions

A year after a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling that threatened to cripple public sector unions, they seem to be holding their own.

Government employees, it turns out, see value in belonging to unions. Membership in Illinois government unions actually has increased a year after the June 27, 2018, ruling in Janus vs. AFSCME, as Sun-Times Washington Bureau Chief Lynn Sweet reported in a recent column.

Two Cheers for a Lackluster Economy

Raise a glass to the longest economic expansion in modern American history.

A full decade has passed since the end of the last recession, in June 2009, and the economy continues to grow. As of Monday, the current expansion surpassed the previous record for uninterrupted growth, set between 1991 and 2001.

But this time around, no one is accusing Americans of irrational exuberance: These good times don’t feel particularly good. Economic growth over the past decade has been slow and fragile, and most of the benefits have been claimed by a small minority of  the population.

The Strike that Brought Teachers Unions Back from the Dead

On the morning of September 10, 2012, the bells rang to open Chicago’s public schools, but there were no teachers in the classrooms.

The night before, negotiations with Chicago’s reform-minded mayor, Rahm Emanuel, had gone south, and the new activist leaders of the city’s 25,000-member teachers union, clad all in red, walked out. Surrounded by a throng of cameras, they declared that their members would go on strike for the first time in 25 years.

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$15/hr. Minimum Wage Bill BY 2024 Needs Your Help!

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

The $15/hr. by 2024 minimum wage bill is in danger of not passing with a veto proof majority.  We need your help to make sure this economic legislation which will help over 84,000 hardworking Vermonters being able to help pay for there basic needs such as, food, rent, healthcare, car repairs, heating fuel and etc. Please call you House legislators and ask them to vote YES on $15/hr. by 2024 minimum wage.

Click on the link below to find to find your legislator’s phone number and email address.

https://legislature.vermont.gov/people/all/2020/House

Solidarity,

Dennis LaBounty

Vermont AFL-CIO

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We Need a Better NAFTA

The new NAFTA is another corporate handout. It won't stem the outsourcing of good jobs or protect the rights of working people. Tell Congress the new NAFTA isn't good enough.

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