Vermont Workers' Center Fighting for Workers' Rights!

OUR MISSION

The Vermont Workers' Center is a democratic, member-run organization dedicated to organizing for workers' rights and living wages for all Vermonters.

We seek an economically just and democratic Vermont in which all residents have living wages, decent health care, childcare, housing and transportation.

We work to build a democratic, diverse movement of working and low-income Vermonters that is locally focused and coordinated on a statewide basis. We work with organized labor in moving towards economic justice and in strengthening the right to organize. We are committed to taking action on the full range of issues of concern to working people, and to building alliances nationally and internationally.

OUR STRATEGIC ORIENTATION

We believe that the most effective means of change is people engaging in collective struggle to place direct demands upon those who hold power.

WHAT WE DO

The Vermont Workers’ Center is made up of hundreds of individuals and dozens of organizations (unions, churches, community groups, etc) and is dedicated to protecting and expanding the rights of all working and low-income Vermonters.

By organizing rallies, public hearings, forums, publicizing peoples' stories, and taking direct action, we support workers throughout the state who are trying to improve their wages, benefits, rights on the job, working conditions and their communities.

OUR HISTORY

In the spring of 1996, a group of low-income workers in Central Vermont started the Workers' Center.

In the Fall of 2001, the Workers' Center affiliated with the national organization called Jobs With Justice. Founded in 1987, JWJ's mission is to improve working people's standard of living, fight for job security, and protect workers' right to organize. There are now over 40 local coalitions of Jobs With Justice across the country.

In the Summer of 2005, the Workers' Center affiliated with another alliance of grassroots groups called Grassroots Global Justice, which organizes to build an agenda for power for working and poor people, understanding that there are important connections between the local issues we work on and the global context. GGJ sees itself as part of an international movement for global justice.