After working on the administrative side of a private business for a few years, I was sick and tired of watching wages steadily rise for the men who were buddies with the boss while the women picked up all the slack for a fraction of their pay. I witnessed wage theft in the form of regular punch card adjustments by management and overt sexism and racism directed at the lowest-paid workers, who had no real in-house recourse for these abuses.

I didn’t want my sense of dignity checked at the door when I entered my workplace. So, when given the chance, I jumped at the opportunity to get the hell out of there. I wanted a job where I had a voice and power over my own working life and labor — where democracy extended into the workplace and everyone was treated like the human beings we are.

I joined AFSCME in early 2020, when I became a behavioral interventionist at the Howard Center, in Burlington, Vermont, our state’s largest social service agency, which has a staff of sixteen hundred. After COVID-19 hit, my coworkers and I were briefly furloughed. We got help from our union filing for unemployment benefits. When we were recalled to our jobs, navigating life as an “essential worker” providing face-to-face mental health services during a pandemic posed all kinds of safety risks.

So that summer, I became a union steward and helped secure stricter safety measures to protect staff working at a summer camp. By the next winter, I was elected to serve as vice president of our Local 1674, and the following year I became president. Currently, I serve as local secretary. Over the last three years, we have more than doubled our membership — largely through one-on-one conversations at work and home visits.

I’ve spent most of my time providing one-on-one behavioral support in public schools serving kids who have emotional, behavioral, developmental, and intellectual disabilities, from disproportionately poor and working-class families. Many of my fellow AFSCME members work directly with children and adults with a variety of disabilities in the community, in schools, residential facilities, and some workplaces. We also staff crisis programs, including those for substance use and recovery.

Every day, we are on the front lines of disaster capitalism, a Band-Aid that is sorely needed but never enough. While very essential, our work doesn’t address any root problems — like criminalization of poverty and homelessness or diseases like addiction that are often rooted in socioeconomic stressors. The lower-income Vermonters we serve lack universal healthcare, affordable housing and public transportation, access to education and secure employment, and leisure time and recreational spaces, not to mention opportunities to enjoy art and culture.

I signed up in November of 2021 and remain a rank-and-file member of Champlain Valley DSA. I joined DSA because the root cause of so many of our problems, as a working class, is capitalism itself, which robs working people of the resources needed to survive and live freely. I think we need to build a different economy, that puts people over profits. In the meantime, we need to create a broad-based anti-capitalist, anti-fascist labor movement in Vermont.

What motivated me was seeing the lack of essential resources provided to struggling unions in our rural and, thus, often ignored state. Anyone fortunate enough to be part of a progressive service sector local can’t confine themselves to that space alone. We need to engage with the wider labor movement, which is still at its lowest point in terms of union density and strike activity, despite resurgent younger worker interest in on-the-job organizing. If we fail to do so, members of too many unions will continue to be sold out and crushed and even the remaining left and progressive enclaves will collapse.

The reform slate called United! was formed in 2019 by progressive-minded, rank-and-file union members who wanted to see a revitalized and fighting labor movement in our state. We articulated that vision in a ten-point platform later adopted as the official program of the state fed after we won.

Key elements of the AFL-CIO’s new agenda in Vermont include prioritizing organizing; not being afraid to exercise our power as workers, including by striking; speaking up on issues of social justice such as racism and gender oppression; achieving greater independence from the Democratic Party; and encouraging union democracy through wider participation of the rank and file. United! is not just an individual or group of individuals seeking higher office in organized labor. We’re trying to reach and inspire every worker who wants a more thriving, fighting labor movement.

Our fundamental disagreement was over organizational priorities — whether to focus on politicians or fellow working-class people. The more centrist candidates felt that the labor council should return to its old role as a statehouse lobbyist, which cultivated insider relationships with legislators from both major parties.

The United! slate pledged to build rank-and-file power by redoubling our organizing efforts. It is our belief that when we build people power, it will be the politicians who ask for our endorsement, not the other way around. And that’s the direction we must take — one in which the politicians in the statehouse have to listen to us because we have power.

Since 2019, we have strengthened our ties with the Vermont Progressive Party, a third party which has not only focused on workers’ rights but also championed broader social justice causes, in a political landscape often dominated by powerful corporate interests. The VPP’s role as a party for the working class is not just about rhetoric; it’s about tangible actions. It’s about supporting legislation like the VT PRO Act that would protect the right to organize, about standing up against union-busting tactics, and ensuring that union members have a seat at the policymaking table.

Yes, it’s a pretty important step we’ve taken and a first in our labor council’s history. Historically, it’s been difficult for women to participate in union activity, let alone hold positions of leadership.

Lack of childcare at meetings is a huge barrier to participation. So United! hired unionized early childhood educators to provide child care at our conventions to make it easier for women and young families to participate.  It’s no secret that women are paid less, have fewer resources, are in less privileged positions of power, and have to work harder to get by. However, we’ve seen a recent resurgence in organizing led mostly by women in industries with a disproportionately female workforce such as food service, health care, and social services.

Workers Circles’ are a great place to start new organizing campaigns and build networks of support for them. Our goal is to rebuild the base of the labor movement by developing new rank-and-file leaders through peer collaboration. We have been training more facilitators and expanding the circles to other parts of the state. It’s a model that helps connect coworkers and comrades, so they can support each other along the way.

Make time to have some fun together and experience the joy of community. Organizing is about breaking out of the isolation we experience at work and in our communities, which means building personal relationships, which can be deepened by the collective experience of class struggle.

We can learn a lot from the southern civil rights movement sixty years ago. Its local activists faced brutal white supremacist opposition. They knew what hardships lay ahead. But they were prepared because they had made an organizing plan. And, most importantly, they made a decision that living in a segregated society was intolerable and fighting back was worth the hardship and sacrifices necessary to change that situation.

When things get difficult, talk to your coworkers and ask them, what is intolerable? Is it engaging in class struggle and organizing? Or is it the poverty wages? The degrading working conditions? The disrespect? In organizing lingo, we call this “framing the choice,” because to do nothing is also a choice to live with the conditions you have right now and to allow others to live that way, too.