A Message From VSEA President Aimee Bertrand Towne
I am writing today to share my thoughts on VSEA’s Board of Trustees’ vote to join the National AFL-CIO, a coalition of unions that come together to increase the power of workers. My goal is to share with you the rationale for this decision.
Protecting VSEA’s Independence
VSEA is a proud, 79-year independent union, which is very rare in the labor movement.
Independent unions are becoming rarer because they are often “raided” in what is like a hostile takeover by big, out-of-state national unions. These other unions have the ability to spend money and deploy resources, like organizers, to try to gain enough favor among union members to force an election to leave the existing union and in turn, join a different one. These large national unions often tell members what they want to hear and/or share misinformation using their huge war chest