Labor and aging Vermonters
Vermont workers and aging Vermonters deserve and need to be a priority within legislative policy work this session. Any actual or suggested wage growth should be considered as stagnant due to inflation. Working families’ household budgets are stretched to the max within the crises found in child care and the affordable housing market. Workers struggle to organize unions under our overly complicated labor laws. More importantly, the Vermont legislature has failed to make major progress on important labor policy in recent years.
The Administration for Community Living projects that 20 percent of people need long-term care for longer than 5 years. Elders in Vermont do not have access to the care they need and deserve. People with Alzheimers and other types of dementia are too often left behind and not enough is done to ensure that caretakers are well-equipped. Families slip into turmoil, relationships can unravel with age, and people are not educated to recognize the signs of oncoming dementia. Healthcare workers need adequate training and we need to do better, as a state, caring for vulnerable people, regardless of their age.
It is time for the legislature to prioritize policies that protect workers’ rights, address income inequality, boost literacy around the signs of different types of dementia, ensure that people can age with dignity, and expand access to real and dignified safe and affirming end-of-life care.
Progressives are hard at work fighting for fair labor policy that empowers workers and bolsters their economic power with workplace rights and better access to unions. Below are some of the labor bills introduced by Progressives this session, notedly Rep. Emma Mulvaney-Stanak and Rep. Kate Logan.
H.116, Wage transparency, closing the wage gap, and protecting workers
In an attempt to eradicate the wage gap felt by women and BIPOC Vermonters, this bill requires wage transparency by employers in job postings and within employers. H.116 also protects workers by prohibiting employers from providing wage compensation history to prospective employees or using wage compensation history negatively against a prospective employee. The bill also adds gender and racial identity to the current state Equal Pay Act, enabling Vermonters of all gender and racial identities to access an equal pay claim within the legal system. Additionally,he bill includes provisions to require employers to provide reliable work schedules to workers at least 14 days in advance of the first day of their work schedule and to reimburse employees for work related expenses.
Vermont women employeed full time are paid 84 cents to every dollar paid to a men in a comparable position. 39% of Vermont women working full time do not make a livable wage. Black women are paid 64 cents and Latinx women are paid 57 cents to every dollar paid to a white man. Nationally, 17% of the workforce experience irregular shift schedules. Most of these workers earn less than $40,000.00 per year and are primarily women and BIPOC identified. One explanation is that these inequities are so pervasive and in high concentration among the irregular shifts found within the retail and service industries. H.116 would be a tangible way to close the gender and racial wage gap and protect workers in the workplace.
H.218 and H.219, The PRO (Protecting the Right to Organize) Act:
The VT PRO Act is made up of two bills. H.219 includes 4 important provisions: 1) expanding collective bargaining rights to domestic and agricultural workers under state law, 2) ending at-will employment by giving all workers good cause employment rights, 3) simplifying the union organizing process by requiring one step versus two (majority card sign up), and 4) ending captive audience meetings. H.218 is a companion bill that provides more detail for how the state should define good cause employment rights, which include due process for workplace discipline and termination.
Together the bills would make organizing unions significantly easier for public sector employees and secure greater protections to all workers regardless of union status.
H.196, Fair pay for construction workers and tradespeople!
This bill seeks to empower workers who work on state construction projects by proposing to amend the prevailing wage calculation. Prevailing wages are a concept similar to minimum wage and minimum benefit standards for certain sectors( largely tradespeople) to protect workers from being undercut by low-wage employees. H.196 proposes to use local wage data set by local union contracts. Currently Vermont uses national aggregated data which mostly sets lower wages than area union contracts. Additionally, this bill would propose an enforcement provision for any violation of the State’s prevailing wage requirements, ensuring that construction worker wages and benefits are legally protected. This bill benefits both union and non-union workers as it would be universally applied to all state construction projects regardless of which employer wins the state job.
H.415, Minimum wage bill
Last week, Rep. Kate Logan and Rep. Jubilee McGill introduced H.415, a bill to raise the minimum wage from 13.18/hour to $19.45 per hour with provisions for eliminating exceptions to minimum wage. This figure was calculated based upon what would be considered a livable wage for a household composed of 1 working adult. This bill will also include a tax credit for low to moderate revenue small businesses.
Public caucus
Tomorrow, we have our public caucus on Aging Vermonters and Elder Care with Megan Polyte; Policy Director at the Alzheimer's Association of Vermont, and Ruby Baker; Executive Director of the Community of Vermont Elders. We will be learning about the Crisis on Long Term Care and how the legislature can effectively engage with this critical work.
This past week, our public caucus was Laborpalooza! We had a roundtable on labor issues in Vermont and took a deep dive into the aforementioned bills with labor champs Liz Medina from the VT AFL-CIO, David Mickenberg from the Working Vermont Coalition, Cary Brown from the VT Commission on Women, Bor Yang from the VT Human Rights Commission, and Joe Moore from the PRO Act Coalition.
You can tune for tomorrow’s caucus at the Legislative Caucus Youtube Channel, or watch the previous public caucus on Labor.
Recently, we had Progressive activists from across the state join us at our public caucus and for a debrief after over lunch with Rep. Brian Cina. Thank you to everyone who joined us, and reach out if you have any interest in joining our next statehouse visit!
Progs in the Press
Joseph Moore in VTDigger: Vermont workers deserve more ‘good cause’ job protections
Union organizer, Central Vermont DSA member, and Vermont PRO Act Coalition member Joseph Moore speaks out in support of the PRO Act, and highlighting the worst implications of no-cause terminations, “No Vermonter should ever have to suffer the indignity and hardship of losing their job without warning or explanation,” moore writes. We couldn’t agree more.
NBC5: Ukrainian Americans reflect on year of heartbreak on first anniversary of Russian invasion
In Montpelier, Vermonters came together to reflect on the tragedies in Ukraine. "It's just a powerful space to come together and stand in solidarity and remind people that this (war in Ukraine) is still happening," Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky said.
VTCynic: House bill intended to ease housing crisis would limit University enrollment
VTCynic: City Council cites enrollment, housing concerns in tabling Trinity rezoning
WCAX: Vt. Lawmakers look to cap UVM growth until Burlington’s housing can catch up
VTDigger: Housing debate reveals signs of strain in UVM-Burlington relationship
In light of rapidly increasing enrollment rates to UVM amid an increasingly urgent housing crisis, Rep. Troy Headrick calls for more housing to be built as well as a cap on enrollment to the university. He introduced a bill that would force UVM to cap student enrollment at current levels until Burlington’s rental vacancy reaches 5%, and ensure at least 93 square feet of living space per student. Currently, 30% of UVM students are assigned into “forced triples” – a scenario in which3 students are crammed into a room that has historically only housed 2 students.
