“I have never felt so proud as I did today. Being at Peter Shumlin’s inauguration was just awesome. I felt in my heart back in June at the Brattleboro Forum he was going to be the our next governor, but today as he took the oath of office for Governor my heart was so full of pride and joy I felt like it would burst. He gave a wonderful speech and when he spoke on early education he looked directly at Amy and me, giving us the feeling that we had really made a difference in his eyes. I, in turn gave him a thumbs up and he smiled back at us.
This has been an opportunity I will hold in my heart forever. I sincerely believe we have made a great impression on the political world. In turn this is going to bring forth our professionalism with Our Union. Our Union is where we can bring all the best of each and everyone of us to the forefront and set Early Educators on a path to quality care and financial success.” – Joyce Wheeler, pictured on right.
A lot of people in Vermont have a lot of different reasons to celebrate the commencement of the Shumlin era in Montpelier. So what’s this particular Vermonter referring to?
Regular readers will remember Julie’s reports from 2009 about UPV-AFT’s efforts to organize early childhood educators and child care workers across the state. With the inauguration of Peter Shumlin, the work to secure basic collective bargaining rights with the state for this historically vulnerable, yet absolutely critical sector of the workforce is much closer to fruition.
I say “critical” because children are critical, and their care and early education has to be a front-and-center priority, rather than one we simply take for granted. Critical because this early education and care industry is a foundation that most other industries are balanced on (whether they realize it or not) – and without basic protections for those working in this sector (even the confidence in the ability to make a basic living in the field), it can never be the stable foundation our families and our economy need it to be.
And now? Enabling legislation is being drafted to create a regime for this uniquely modern model of workforce organizing and bargaining. Hubbub in the statehouse is already circulating among those that may be inclined (for whatever reason) to oppose this legislation that they might as well save their energy, as support for the bill is strong and wide enough to make passage look all but inevitable.
And that should be good news for everyone in the state.
(Full disclosure moment: I’m currently doing some communications consulting for UPV-AFT through PowerThru Consulting)
More power to this organizing campaign. Be nice to see Vermont lead the nation in returning to defending the very principle (the right to form a union) that led to a weekend, an eight-hour work day, health care and retirement benefits (what’s left of them any way), sick leave, FMLA, and the list goes on and on. Why is that what our great-grandparents, grandparents and parents fought and bled to procure, we (some of us, I should say) now want to chuck away in a heartbeat? My great grandfather was evicted from company housing in the 20’s for “promoting union” at the mine. Campaigns like the UPT’s keep a small flame of hope alive that his struggles–and the struggles and fights of hundreds of thousands of others–weren’t for nothing.