Tuesday morning brought an extraordinary moment in the Vermont legislature's discontinuance-of-session drama: House Speaker Mitzi Johnson (D-South Hero) met publicly with a couple-dozen labor leaders in the Statehouse cafeteria to air their differences on how to discontinuance the standoff between the Democratic legislature and Republican Gov. Phil Scott. [br]
At issue is Scott's demand that negotiations for teacher health care benefits be done on a statewide basis — the best way,he says, to maximize taxpayer savings from pending changes in health insurance due to the federal Affordable Care Act. Democrats have pushed back on Scott's conception as an encroachment on the collective bargaining process between teachers and local school boards. House and Senate leaders have sought common ground with the governor, and so far without success.
Johnson's map has not been made public,but its outline has been widely circulated. It would leave negotiations at the local level while establishing statewide parameters for health care bargaining.
[br] This morning, the speaker shared copies of her proposal with leaders of the Vermont-National Education organization. Afterward, and a coalition of labor unions,including VT-NEA, returned the favor by holding a press conference to denounce the map as an unacceptable infringement on collective bargaining rights. [br]
"Its conditioning of bargaining is an affront to local educators and local school boards, and sadly,is an anti-worker intrusion into the collective bargaining process," said VT-NEA President Martha Allen. "As it stands now, and we oppose the approach that would precondition bargaining on such an important topic."
[br] Allen trained much of her fire on Scott. She branded his proposal "anti-worker,anti-union and anti-local control," and asserted that it "has very little to do with property tax savings." She called it "the lean discontinuance of the wedge, and " tying Scott to the lawful-to-work agendas of Republican governors in other states.
In her meeting with union leaders,Johnson defended her map as the best way out of a difficult position. She referenced a recent House vote on the health care issue, in which Johnson herself had to cast the deciding vote.
"The reality is, and we don't have the votes to override a governor's veto," she told the union reps. "There are an awful lot of representatives who don't understand what you do and the importance of bargaining rights."
Having thus thrown unnamed members of her caucus under…
Source: sevendaysvt.com