[Katie Maurice is a Democratic Socialists of America member and
labor activist. She was recently elected president of the Vermont
AFL-CIO on a platform of boosting rank-and-file participation and
building power outside the Democratic Party.]
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VERMONT’S NEW AFL-CIO PRESIDENT IS A DEMOCRATIC SOCIALIST AND LABOR
REFORMER  
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Steve Early, Interviewer
December 21, 2023
Jacobin
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*
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_ Katie Maurice is a Democratic Socialists of America member and
labor activist. She was recently elected president of the Vermont
AFL-CIO on a platform of boosting rank-and-file participation and
building power outside the Democratic Party. _

Members of the support staff at the University of Vermont Medical
Center in Burlington celebrate after they voted to unionize , Glenn
Russell/VTDigger

 

Unlike some local and national unions, the AFL-CIO’s state and local
bodies rarely hold contested leadership elections with opposing slates
offering alternative strategies for reviving the labor movement. Yet
in Vermont, there have been two such contests for the state federation
in the last four years, both producing a mandate for change.

In 2019, a group of local union officers and staff members created a
reform slate called “Vermont AFL-CIO United!” Fourteen of its
candidates got elected — taking all the top officer jobs and forming
a majority on the state labor council’s executive board. Their goal
was to revitalize a moribund organization through membership
education, mobilization, and direct action, plus greater independence
from the Democratic Party.

A key organizer of the United! slate four years ago, American
Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) activist
David Van Deusen, stepped down as Vermont AFL-CIO president after two
terms in September. (He recounts his stormy tenure in a forthcoming
book entitled _Insurgent Labor_
[[link removed]]_.) _After
another highly competitive election campaign, state labor council
delegates chose Katie Maurice, a thirty-one-year-old fellow member of
AFSCME and the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) as his
successor.

The United! slate again won a majority of the seats on the state
federation’s executive board. Maurice’s running-mate, Ellen Kaye,
from the American Federation of Teachers, became executive vice
president. And Danielle Bombardier, a working member of the
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, rounded out their
all-female leadership team as secretary treasurer.

At the convention, Vermont labor activists also celebrated an
affiliation agreement with the long-independent State Employees
Association, which have doubled the number of workers represented by
the AFL-CIO in Vermont.

In this interview, conducted by Steve Early, Maurice discusses her own
path to joining a union, becoming a DSA member, and, now reportedly,
the youngest state labor federation president in the country.

What led to your involvement in the labor movement?

Katie Maurice
After working on the administrative side of a private business for a
few years, I was sick and tired of watching wages steadily rise for
the men who were buddies with the boss while the women picked up all
the slack for a fraction of their pay. I witnessed wage theft in the
form of regular punch card adjustments by management and overt sexism
and racism directed at the lowest-paid workers, who had no real
in-house recourse for these abuses.

I didn’t want my sense of dignity checked at the door when I entered
my workplace. So, when given the chance, I jumped at the opportunity
to get the hell out of there. I wanted a job where I had a voice and
power over my own working life and labor — where democracy extended
into the workplace and everyone was treated like the human beings we
are.

Steve Early
What changed when you became an AFSCME member?

Katie Maurice
I joined AFSCME in early 2020, when I became a behavioral
interventionist at the Howard Center, in Burlington, Vermont, our
state’s largest social service agency, which has a staff of sixteen
hundred. After COVID-19 hit, my coworkers and I were briefly
furloughed. We got help from our union filing for unemployment
benefits. When we were recalled to our jobs, navigating life as an
“essential worker” providing face-to-face mental health services
during a pandemic posed all kinds of safety risks.

So that summer, I became a union steward and helped secure stricter
safety measures to protect staff working at a summer camp. By the next
winter, I was elected to serve as vice president of our Local 1674,
and the following year I became president.

Steve Early
What kind of social service work have you done at the Howard Center?

Katie Maurice
I’ve spent most of my time providing one-on-one behavioral support
in public schools serving kids who have emotional, behavioral,
developmental, and intellectual disabilities, from disproportionately
poor and working-class families. Many of my fellow AFSCME members work
directly with children and adults with a variety of disabilities in
the community, in schools, residential facilities, and some
workplaces. We also staff crisis programs, including those for
substance use and recovery.

Every day, we are on the front lines of disaster capitalism, a
Band-Aid that is sorely needed but never enough. While very essential,
our work doesn’t address any root problems — like criminalization
of poverty and homelessness or diseases like addiction that are often
rooted in socioeconomic stressors. The lower-income Vermonters we
serve lack universal healthcare, affordable housing and public
transportation, access to education and secure employment, and leisure
time and recreational spaces, not to mention opportunities to enjoy
art and culture.

Steve Early
Why did you join DSA?

Katie Maurice
I signed up in November of 2021 and remain a rank-and-file member of
Champlain Valley DSA. I joined DSA because the root cause of so many
of our problems, as a working class, is capitalism itself, which robs
working people of the resources needed to survive and live freely. I
think we need to build a different economy, that puts people over
profits. In the meantime, we need to create a broad-based
anti-capitalist, anti-fascist labor movement in Vermont.

Steve Early
What made you decide to get involved in a state level affiliate of the
national AFL-CIO, which is not the typical venue for labor activism by
a young labor radical?

Katie Maurice
What motivated me was seeing the lack of essential resources provided
to struggling unions in our rural and, thus, often ignored state.
Anyone fortunate enough to be part of a progressive service sector
local can’t confine themselves to that space alone. We need to
engage with the wider labor movement, which is still at its lowest
point in terms of union density and strike activity, despite resurgent
younger worker interest in on-the-job organizing. If we fail to do so,
members of too many unions will continue to be sold out and crushed
and even the remaining left and progressive enclaves will collapse.

Steve Early
Could you tell us about the reform faction that has won two contested
elections for the leadership of the Vermont labor council?

Katie Maurice
The reform slate called United! was formed in 2019 by
progressive-minded, rank-and-file union members who wanted to see a
revitalized and fighting labor movement in our state. We articulated
that vision in a ten-point platform
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adopted as the official program of the state fed after we won.

Key elements of the AFL-CIO’s new agenda in Vermont include
prioritizing organizing; not being afraid to exercise our power as
workers, including by striking; speaking up on issues of social
justice such as racism and gender oppression; achieving greater
independence from the Democratic Party; and encouraging union
democracy through wider participation of the rank and file. United! is
not just an individual or group of individuals seeking higher office
in organized labor. We’re trying to reach and inspire every worker
who wants a more thriving, fighting labor movement.

Steve Early
What were some of the key differences between your United! slate and
the more traditional building trades-led ticket?

Katie Maurice
Our fundamental disagreement was over organizational priorities —
whether to focus on politicians or fellow working-class people. The
more centrist candidates felt that the labor council should return to
its old role as a statehouse lobbyist, which cultivated insider
relationships with legislators from both major parties.

The United! slate pledged to build rank-and-file power by redoubling
our organizing efforts. It is our belief that when we build people
power, it will be the politicians who ask for our endorsement, not the
other way around. And that’s the direction we must take — one in
which the politicians in the statehouse have to listen to us because
_we_ have power.

Since 2019, we have strengthened our ties with the Vermont Progressive
Party
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a third party which has not only focused on workers’ rights but also
championed broader social justice causes, in a political landscape
often dominated by powerful corporate interests. The VPP’s role as a
party for the working class is not just about rhetoric; it’s about
tangible actions. It’s about supporting legislation like the VT PRO
Act that would protect the right to organize, about standing up
against union-busting tactics, and ensuring that union members have a
seat at the policymaking table.

Steve Early
By a narrow margin, you were elected the youngest state fed president
in the country, as part of a very rare all-female leadership team.

Katie Maurice
Yes, it’s a pretty important step we’ve taken and a first in our
labor council’s history. Historically, it’s been difficult for
women to participate in union activity, let alone hold positions of
leadership.

Lack of childcare at meetings is a huge barrier to participation. So
United! hired unionized early childhood educators to provide child
care at our conventions to make it easier for women and young families
to participate.  It’s no secret that women are paid less, have
fewer resources, are in less privileged positions of power, and have
to work harder to get by. However, we’ve seen a recent resurgence in
organizing led mostly by women in industries with a disproportionately
female workforce such as food service, health care, and social
services.

Steve Early
“Workers Circles
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— small-group discussions sponsored by DSA and the labor council —
have become a vehicle for labor education and activism in Vermont.
Where do you see this unusual program heading during your two-year
term?

Katie Maurice
Workers Circles’ are a great place to start new organizing campaigns
and build networks of support for them. Our goal is to rebuild the
base of the labor movement by developing new rank-and-file leaders
through peer collaboration. We have been training more facilitators
and expanding the circles to other parts of the state. It’s a model
that helps connect coworkers and comrades, so they can support each
other along the way.

Steve Early
Do you have any advice for other DSA members who are involved in new
organizing campaigns or trying to improve union functioning through
reform caucus activity?

Katie Maurice
Make time to have some fun together and experience the joy of
community. Organizing is about breaking out of the isolation we
experience at work and in our communities, which means building
personal relationships, which can be deepened by the collective
experience of class struggle.

We can learn a lot from the southern civil rights movement sixty years
ago. Its local activists faced brutal white supremacist opposition.
They knew what hardships lay ahead. But they were prepared because
they had made an organizing plan. And, most importantly, they made a
decision that living in a segregated society was intolerable and
fighting back was worth the hardship and sacrifices necessary to
change that situation.

When things get difficult, talk to your coworkers and ask them, what
is intolerable? Is it engaging in class struggle and organizing? Or is
it the poverty wages? The degrading working conditions? The
disrespect? In organizing lingo, we call this “framing the
choice,” because to do nothing is also a choice to live with the
conditions you have right now and to allow others to live that way,
too.

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Katie Maurice is the president of the Vermont AFL-CIO.

Steve Early is a member of NewsGuild/CWA and author of _Refinery
Town: Big Oil, Big Money, and the Remaking of an American City_
[[link removed]]. His new book
(co-authored with Suzanne Gordon and Jasper Craven) is _Our Veterans:
Winners, Losers, Friends and Enemies on the New Terrain of
Veterans_ _Affairs_ [[link removed]].

* Vermont AFL-CIO; Katie Maurice; Vermont Progressive Party;
Democratic Socialists of America;
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