The struggle of Vermont’s workers is deeply interrelated with our state’s climate goals. As a labor advocate, working electrician, and member of the Just Transitions subcommittee of the Vermont Climate
by Steve Early on April 20, 2021
For as long as Richard Trumka has been a national AFL-CIO leader more than a quarter of a century his labor federation has been encouraging its state and local affiliates to revitalize themselves to help reverse union decline.
Now nearing retirement as AFL-CIO president, Trumka was part of a “New Voice” slate that challenged old guard officials for control of the organization in 1995, via its first contested election in a century. New Voice candidates promised to work with state and local AFL-CIO councils to make labor’s political action and workplace solidarity more effective. Among the reforms they implemented was hiring more staff to promote picketing and protests by union members under attack by hostile employers. At the national level, New Voice also pledged to get tough on Democrats who received backing but then failed t
4:08
A new coalition in Vermont aims to unify grassroots work on racial, economic and environmental justice policies.
Vermont Renews was launched last week by advocates and legislators who support action on social justice and environmental policies. It is currently comprised of nine organizations including labor, racial justice and environmental advocates.
Rights and Democracy Movement Politics Director Kiah Morris is a member of the Vermont Commission on Women. She hosted the virtual launch of Vermont Renews. “Our current systems are deeply dysfunctional, rooted in historical oppressions and fragile. And when those fragile systems break it is the Vermonters who have been systemically kept out of the places of power that are the most impacted: Abenaki and indigenous persons, racial and ethnic minorities, LGBTQIA ( Outright Action International: LGBTQIA – Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and/or Questioning, Intersex, and Asexual and/or Ally) individuals, individua