One of Vermont’s largest labor union alliances is leaving a statewide workers coalition over the handling of the tense process that led to major changes in how school employees will bargain for their health care plans starting next year.
The Vermont State Labor Council, AFL-CIO, announced the decision to leave the Working Vermont coalition in a letter to affiliate unions on July 12.
The labor council’s decision was not in protest of the legislation itself, but rather over the legislative process, which the council called “lopsided” and contrary to its values, and to the collaborative intent of Working Vermont.
The central point of conflict was the issue of shifting collective bargaining over health care from the district level to the state level. The NEA, the state’s teachers union, had been opposed to the change, but suddenly announced a unilateral shift in April, and put forward a proposal without consulting other unions involved, including AFSCME, a member of the labor council.
“We learned in Senate Education legislation was surreptitiously drafted to strip AFSCME school workers of their health care collective bargaining rights. We believe this violate the collaborative spirit of Working Vermont,” says the letter from labor council president Jill Charboneau announcing the decision.
“Until we feel we have addressed the issues surrounding our departure from Working Vermont we will remain separate,” it concluded.
AFSCME, an AFL-CIO affiliate union in Vermont, represents more than a hundred non-licensed school staff, who are employed at some of Vermont’s largest public schools. The Vermont-NEA represents thousands of the state’s unionized teachers and administrators.
The two organizations are among the members of Working Vermont, a coalition of more than a dozen unions representing an estimated 90,000 working families in the state. The coalition is meant to give labor groups a platform to discuss and coordinate their advocacy efforts, including political lobbying.
Working Vermont is represented by the Necrason Group in the Statehouse, with unions chipping in to pay for the lobbying efforts. Necrason also represented the NEA in its health care efforts during this session, which became an issue for AFSCME because the two groups had fundamental disagreements over the plan.
“In a last minute effort we were called to report to the Speaker of the House’s Office without even so much as a heads up and then were confronted with the very stable of attorneys hired to represent Working Vermont in this lopsided affair,” says the letter from Charboneau.
Adam Necrason, president of the Necrason Group, said the firm had helped reach an outcome that would benefit all workers involved. As for the differences of opinion within Working Vermont, he said that was an issue for the unions to reconcile.
“This is a loosely chartered coalition client and their varying views on strategy is theirs to sort out amongst themselves,” Necrason said. “This is a pro-labor result that is good for Vermont workers and the labor movement.”
NEA communications director Darren Allen said the responsibilities of Necrason in the legislative process were “very clearly defined.” “The advocacy the firm did on our behalf was transparent, and we are really proud of the group,” he said.
Necrason was hired to lobby for a proposal the NEA pitched in April that shifted the negotiations to the state level in exchange for giving unions and school boards equal say in the decision making process. Unions currently have only one of five seats on the body that decides which plans are available to school employees.
AFSCME says it was not ready to make the change, and that the NEA’s initial proposal would have taken away the collective bargaining rights of AFSCME members.
While the law eventually included language that requires both unions to ratify any proposal that comes out of a new statewide negotiating committee — the exact process for this still needs to be decided on by the two unions — the process convinced the labor council that Working Vermont was not worth its time and money.
“So while the NEA is welcome to work on things they support that we may not support, the interchange of the attorneys certainly surprised me,” Charboneau said in an interview Tuesday, referring to Necrason Group lobbyists. She added that the organization’s executive board had made the decision to leave the coalition.
“They felt we should distinguish ourselves as being separate and take a step back and see where we want to be,” she said.
David Van Dusen, staff representative of AFSCME, said the experience made it clear that the union was not moving in the same direction as some of the other coalition members.
“We want to strive toward more rank and file involvement in our legislative efforts and we wanted to be able to define our own priorities as an organization,” he said.
Because of its advocacy efforts, AFSCME won a seat at the table during state-level negotiations over the design of the health care plan, and was satisfied with the eventual outcome, he said, adding that AFSCME and NEA members would continue supporting each other on issues of shared interest.
The two unions will also have to sit down in the coming months to finalize the ratification process for the health care plans. “We will be working with them to decide what process looks like, making the ratification process democratic and involving votes of membership,” Van Dusen said.
Allen at the NEA said whatever divisions exist between union leadership shouldn’t overshadow the ongoing cooperation between the state’s labor groups that was on display during the recent UVM nurses’ strike.
“Every union in the state — there’s so much that unites us regardless of what goes on at Working Vermont,” he said. “There are times when we disagree with one another, however that is far overshadowed by what we have had, and will continue to have, in common.”
Allen said there were still plenty of specifics to be sorted out as far as how the new health care bargaining system would actually be implemented.
“I think that’s one of the myriad reasons why we are grateful that legislators gave us a year reprieve to figure out logistics,” he said.
