The Vermont State Employees Union has a new president.
Dave Bellini, a 37-year veteran of the Department of Corrections who ran unopposed, was elected Saturday by the roughly 5,500-member union at its 71st annual meeting.
Bellini, who lives in Montpelier, joined the union when he was first hired by DOC in 1979, he said on Monday. “I refused to be hired as a temp,” Bellini said. It was April and his starting wage was $3.96 per hour.
“You don’t forget your first time working in a prison on the third [overnight] shift,” he said.
Bellini takes the reins from Shelley Martin, who served one term as president beginning in 2013. Elections for VSEA officers are biennial.
There are serious challenges facing the union, according to Bellini, and chief among them is the prospect of a level-funded budget. That will make it difficult to address safety concerns for state social workers, who are also overburdened with high caseloads, Bellini said.
Bellini said he will bring a no-nonsense style and straightforward unifying message to his role as president: “We’re hardworking, middle-class folks, and we’re taxpayers.”
The VSEA also elected Katelyn Chase of the Economic Services Division as clerk; Sheila Manchester Coniff of the Agency of Education as treasurer; Rubin Jennings of the Defender General’s Office as second vice president; and Aimee Towne of the Economic Services Division as first vice president.
