Rights at Work

Darren Allen, Communications Director for the Vermont-NEA, explains that the Burlington Education Association wants schools Burlington deserves. This includes affordable health care for teachers and all Vermonters; adequately resourced schools and support for all students; time for teachers prepare and collaborate to educate students; and transparency with how decisions are made by the school district. The BEA developed contract proposals in line with these areas.

Isaac Grimm and Dustin Tanner of Rights and Democracy and the Raise the Wage Coalition talk about campaigning to win the Fight for $15. The legislature's Minimum Wage Study Committee is studying economic projections which estimate that nearly 100,000 working Vermonters would benefit from raising the minimum wage to $15/hour.

Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), the largest socialist group in the U.S. with 25,000 members, having grown four fold in the past 18 months, is preparing its convention.

Joseph M. Schwartz, a professor of political science at Temple University, a national vice chair of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), and author of Coalition Politics and the Fight for Socialism, talks about the reasons for the rapid growth of DSA to become the largest U.S. socialist organization in the U.S. since the 1940s.

Jessica Early, a nurse and Rights & Democracy healthcare organizer explains that what the House of Representatives has done – taking the rudiments of an entirely inadequate national insurance system, and shredding it – represents the greatest assault on low and moderate-income Americans of any law in modern times. The AHCA would roll back the expansion of Medicaid, and eliminate coverage that more than 70,000 Vermonters rely on.