One of Vermont’s largest labor unions looks set to take a hard left turn after its members elected a new roster of leaders this month who say they are poised to “revitalize Vermont’s labor movement” and take a more progressive approach to politics.
Members of Vermont’s AFL-CIO, an organization representing 10,000 union members, elected Dave Van Deusen, a self-described anarchist and Progressive Party member, as its new state president, along with fresh faces in a number of local leadership posts.
Van Deusen says that the group will now be more selective when it comes to endorsing political candidates, and will not be afraid to distance itself from the Democratic Party.
He plans on reforming the organization to give its thousands of members votes to elect top officials — instead of having elections decided by a handful of delegates. And since the election, the new leaders have decided to stop funding lobbyists in favor of hiring a slew of organizers to assist Vermont unions in their efforts.
“Our real power is never going to be a few people in Montpelier,” Van Deusen said in an interview last week. “Our real power is in the number of workers we have unionized and the solidarity those workers are willing to show each other when we’re fighting for our issues.”
The AFL-CIO is composed of many smaller unions, from electrical workers to steelworkers and letter carriers. Its membership is still smaller than Vermont’s chapter of the National Education Association, which has more than 12,000 members, but larger than the Vermont State Employees Association, with over 6,000 members. Both the VSEA and NEA are reliable Democratic supporters.
Van Deusen is the statewide representative for the American Federation of State, Municipal Employees (AFSME) in Vermont, which is part of the AFL-CIO, and used to represent Agency of Transportation workers for the Vermont State Employees Association (VSEA). He has authored two books on socialist and anti-fascist movements in Vermont, and was a co-founder of the Green Mountain Anarchist Collective.
In a written platform, Van Deusen and 14 other candidates on the leadership slate promised to take the organization in a more progressive direction, backing policies including single payer health care, a $15 minimum wage and a Green New Deal to combat climate change.
The incoming AFL-CIO leadership criticized Democrats in Montpelier for failing to pass policies this year including an increased minimum wage, a paid family leave program, and free college tuition.
They said that under their leadership,“the time of the VT AFL-CIO endorsing candidates simply because they are a Democrat is over.”
“At minimum, the VT AFL-CIO will only consider endorsing a candidate if they have a proven record of being a Labor champion,” they wrote.
The leaders said they may also consider withholding donations to candidates or members of parties “which refuse to be proactive on Labor issues,” or even forming their own political party.
Gov. Phil Scott, a Republican, has made few friends in the labor movement during his three years in office, floating education policies unpopular with teachers, angering state employees during contract negotiations, and threatening to veto minimum wage and paid leave bills.
Scott also appeared alongside former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who crusaded against unions during his time in office, at a Republican fundraising event in Burlington in May. Van Deusen helped lead a large protest outside the event.
Van Deusen also said he was disappointed that Democrats didn’t take up one of the AFL-CIO’s biggest priorities of 2019: a card check policy. The policy would permit groups of public sector employees to immediately unionize if a majority votes to do so, without the lengthy process required to get permission from the Vermont Labor Relations Board.
Rep. Tom Stevens, D-Waterbury, who chairs the House’s General, Housing and Military Affairs Committee, which often writes the first draft of labor policies, said that his panel plans on taking up card check in 2020.
He said the reason the committee didn’t address the legislation this year is not because it doesn’t back the policy, but because not all labor advocates were pushing it as a main priority in 2019.
“The fact that it didn’t come up was that legislation and the advocacy was not ready for prime time,” Stevens said.
Stevens said that he disagreed “wholeheartedly” with criticism from new AFL-CIO leaders that Democrats haven’t supported labor interests.
He added that at a time when unions are struggling, and as their influence has shrunk in recent decades, labor leaders need to make sure they continue to educate legislators and younger Vermonters about the role of unions, and their needs.
“If organizations need to hold people accountable in their way, I’m not going to tell them not to,” Stevens said of the AFL-CIO’s more aggressive political approach.
“But I’m going to ask them to make sure they’ve done all their homework and done their work to educate the people who are holding them back.”
The AFL-CIO had a public falling out last year with the Working Vermont Coalition, a group meant to bring unions together for collective action and advocacy. They said that lobbyists paid to represent the council were also representing the Vermont-NEA, creating a conflict of interest. The NEA and AFL-CIO, which represents some non-teacher school employees, were divided over the details of a health care bargaining reform bill.
Sen. Anthony Pollina, D/P Washington, chair of the Vermont Progressive Party, said he was glad to see the new AFL-CIO leadership “standing up for itself.”
He said that as membership in private-sector unions has shrunk over the years, the AFL-CIO has lost some of its influence in the Statehouse. But he says they have a lot of potential to “strengthen their voice and become more engaged.”
“I think sometimes in the past they have given away their power too easily to politicians who ask for their support,” Pollina said. “I’m glad that they’re taking a stronger stand in that respect and saying that you’re going to have to earn our endorsement.”
The AFL-CIO made an early endorsement of James Ehlers for governor in 2018. The Democratic candidate was running on a pro-labor platform, but lost in the primary to Christine Hallquist, a former utility executive whose union credentials were called into question.
The election Van Deusen and the new leadership team has faced questions from some who say its results may not be certified.
Former AFL-CIO president Jill Charbonneau, who was facilitating the election, quit during the middle of the election event on Sept. 15, which raised concerns for some about whether the results will be official.
Christopher Di Mezzo, who attended the convention as a delegate for USW, a union that represents steelworkers and employees of the Vermont Democratic Party, said that after Charbonneau quit, there was “no apparent successor” to run the convention because several members of her leadership team were missing.
Di Mezzo, the spokesperson for the state Democratic Party, supported a competitor in the election: Heather Reimer, the director of the American Federation of Teachers in Vermont, a union representing 5,000 health care and higher education professionals in the state.
After Charbonneau left the meeting, delegates aligned with Van Deusen moved to appoint Traven Layshon, a member-at-large, who they said was the next in line to facilitate the meeting.
Others including union delegates like Di Mezzo and Reimer left the convention, arguing that the process unraveled and that the election was no longer valid after Charbonneau’s departure.
“Everything that happened after Jill’s resignation is not organizationally sound. Any action by the AFL-CIO of Vermont after Jill’s resignation is contested,” Di Mezzo said. “As a group, we decided that even if we stayed and cast votes for Heather Reimer the election would have been a sham anyways.”
Charbonneau’s reasons for quitting are unclear and she did not respond to requests for comment.
Di Mezzo said Charbonneau left in frustration after Van Deusen and his supporters made proposed rule changes and procedural motions. Riemer and the AFL-CIO’s national headquarters also did not respond to requests for comment.
Van Deusen called the charge that the September election was unofficial “absolute malarkey.” He said that the election process followed all AFL-CIO bylaws, and that more than 80% of delegates at the convention voted for him.
Only 10 delegates of about 95 at the convention left after Charbonneau quit, he said.
Sarah Alexander, a member of United Academics, a union which represents faculty at the University of Vermont, was elected as a part of Van Deusen’s slate and now serves as one of the AFL-CIO’s top Chittenden County officials.
She said she was wanted to become a part of the slate because she was drawn to its vision.
“No more business as usual was the idea behind it,” she said. “That it isn’t about union leaders from above determining things for Vermont labor but the rank and file members themselves sort of coming together as a group for a vision of how things should happen.”
Correction: A precious version of this article mistakenly referred to the Working Vermont Coalition as the Vermont State Labor Council. The AFL-CIO and the Vermont State Labor Council are the same organization.
