AFT Vermont | AFT Stateweb

We're hiring: Field Rep/Organizer

AFT Vermont is hiring a smart, motivated Field Rep/Organizer who is willing to work hard for social justice at the workplace and across Vermont. The initial assignment for this position will be organizing the unorganized to win union recognition.

AFT Vermont

· is a democratic, organizing labor union
· is the fastest growing union in Vermont
· has majority women membership and leadership

We organize to build the power to win better wages, respect, and improvements at work.

We are looking for a team member who has

* Experience organizing
* Experience as a union

26 October 2021

Across the country, public college and university administrations have used the Covid-19 crisis as an opening to remake higher education as a business: shuttering liberal arts programming, increasing executive pay, and squeezing more out of students, staff and faculty.

Staff and faculty at the University of Vermont, however, responded to this pressure by organizing -- and this spring, secured important victories in the form of a new contract for faculty and a union for the 1300-plus clerical, technical, specialized and professional staff who work at UVM.

Staff at UVM began

26 October 2021

Planned Parenthood of Northern New England (PPNNE) provides reproductive health care to 42,000 people across Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire, including thousands of people living in underserved low-income and rural communities.

As the pandemic dragged on, however, staff at PPNNE watched as high rates of staff turnover began to jeopardize the organization’s important mission. Health centers faced the prospect of service reductions and closure as underpaid staff left emotionally stressful positions at PPNNE for better-paying jobs elsewhere.

As Dana Keyes-Gibbons reflected, “We

Photo of AFT President Randi Weingarten addressing TEACH 2023

The AFT has always been a solutions-driven union, and our new campaign, launched during TEACH on July 21, proves it once again with a fresh, practical approach to strengthening public education. As AFT President Randi Weingarten pointed out during her keynote speech, the $5 million, yearlong campaign, “Real Solutions for Kids and Communities,” stands up against attacks on public schools and offers real-world solutions to build up, rather than break down, our communities.

Randi Weingarten at a Massachusetts high school

Summer is upon us, and parents, children and teachers are winding down from what has been an exhausting and fully operational school year—the first since the devastating pandemic. The long-lasting impact of COVID-19 has affected our students’ and families’ well-being and ignited the politics surrounding public schools. All signs point to the coming school year unfolding with the same sound and fury, and if extremist culture warriors have their way, being even more divisive and stressful.

In AFT President Randi Weingarten’s latest New York Times column, she describes what it is exactly that unions do. Though unions are the most popular they have been in decades, anti-union sentiment still thrives in red states and across the nation. “Several years ago, The Atlantic ran a story whose headline made even me, a labor leader, scratch my head: ‘Union Membership: Very Sexy,’” Weingarten writes in the column. “The gist was that higher wages, health benefits and job security—all associated with union membership—boost one’s chances of getting married. Belonging to a union doesn’t actually guarantee happily ever after, but it does help working people have a better life in the here and now.” Click through to read the full column.

Respect for Support Staff at UVMMC

At the opening of VFNHP-Nurse negotiations with the UVMMC administration, all of the VFNHP proposals were designed to:

* Protect and improve patient care
* Provide safety and respect
* Improve benefits and compensation to recruit and retain nurses and support staff

Nurses, technical professionals and all staff who agree should add your name here.

Because the staffing crisis affects all staff, VFNHP made the following formal proposals to the UVMMC administration: All UVMMC staff are guaranteed

* A minimum wage of $20/hour (or a 10% increase, whichever is greater)

* The right to organize for RESPECT

26 October 2021

Nurses and health professionals at UVM Medical Center (UVMMC), Porter Medical Center and Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital (CVPH) in Plattsburgh took the lead this year in fighting for safe staffing and quality patient care amidst the Covid-19 pandemic.

The challenges came one after another. On top of a pre-existing staff shortage, in October 2020 UVMMC’s electronic health records system was hit by a ransomware attack that left it incapacitated for nearly four weeks, with ripple effects still being felt months later.

For inpatient X-ray technologist Mike Popovitch and his

Delegates to the AFT Vermont convention ratified the platform for the 2021-22 legislative session. The platform includes:

* Improve Healthcare for All Vermonters

* Increase Funding for Public Higher Education

* Racial Justice

* Increase Vermont’s minimum wage

* Restrict public dollars sent to out-of-state colleges & universities & increase affordability for students

* Increase higher education funding to address the nursing shortage

* Ensure rights for public sector workers

* Institute a statewide family and medical leave insurance program

* A Green New Deal for Vermont

The full platform can be

We're hiring: Field Rep/Organizer

University of Vermont staff and faculty unions chalk up important victories

Planned Parenthood staff celebrate first contract in Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire

Weingarten launches new campaign: ‘Real Solutions for Kids and Communities’

Smears vs. solutions

What unions do

Respect for Support Staff at UVMMC

UVM Health Network nurses and techs fight for safe staffing, imaging techs ratify agreement

AFT Vermont Legislative Agenda 2021-22