Rights at Work

Les Leopold, the director of the Labor Institute, is working with unions and community organizations to build the educational infrastructure of a mass “reversing runaway inequality” movement.

Jonathan Rosenblum author of Beyond $15: Immigrant Workers, Faith Activists, & the Revival of the Labor Movement discusses the strategic lessons he drew as the lead organizer of the first successful fight for a $15 minimum wage and a union. The campaign united the mostly immigrant Sea-Tac Airport workers, union and community activists, and clergy, building the power to take on the corporate and political elites.

Isaac Grimm, lead organizer for Rights & Democracy, and Senator Rev. Debbie Ingram, Vermont Interfaith Action's Executive Director, explain the moral and economic urgency of Vermont moving toward a $15 an hour minimum wage.

Bill Capasso discusses the Critical Situation Facing the Vermont Judiciary. An extremely high number of Docket Clerks have resigned or otherwise left their jobs since the beginning of this fiscal year. Employees who loved their jobs left the Judiciary because they could not afford to give up better paying options.

Pam Galpern, a striking field technician at Verizon and a member of CWA Local 1101, explains that Verizon is pushing to offshore more call-center jobs, outsource more line work to low-wage contractors, and force workers to accept assignments away from home for up to two months at a time—all while it’s making $1.8 billion in profit a month. Along with the 39,000 strikers, negotiations affect 80,000 retirees.