VSEA Executive Director Steve Howard sent an email to VSEA members and retirees, urging each to immediately send an email or place a call now to their House and Senate members with the message:
“Fully Fund The Pay Act! Support Frontline State Employees.”
Please join VSEA members and retirees in calling for full funding of the Pay Act.
The Pay Act is legislation that must be passed biennially to fund state employees’ negotiated wage increases with the State of Vermont. Many of these are the employees who have been working tirelessly on the frontlines in the fight to protect Vermonters’ health and safety during the COVID-19 pandemic. Other employees are continuing to aid Vermonters in need from their homes; many while juggling the same child, parental, or other care responsibilities as any Vermonter. And still, others continue to report to work daily in our state’s 24/7 facilities, like prisons or the Vermont Psychiatric Care Hospital or Veterans Home.
Additional talking points:
Governor Scott supported a wage increase in the agreement he signed with VSEA Executive Branch Bargaining Teams in December 2019;
This Pay Act saves Vermont an estimated $10 million a year for the foreseeable future;
State employees in the lowest pay grades benefit most from this particular Pay Act;
This Pay Act reduces the impact on the State’s unfunded liabilities;
This is the first Pay Act negotiated collaboratively at the table in the past six years;
This Pay Act funds the first contract ever for prosecutors and staff in Vermont’s State’s Attorneys Offices, after an eight-year fight to secure unit bargaining rights.
Important! After you make contact with your lawmaker(s), please let VSEA know the result of your conversation by responding to this short, two-question form.
VSEA Executive Director Steve Howard emailed members belonging to the union’s Executive Branch Units (Non-Management, Corrections & Supervisory) this afternoon to let them know that the Scott Administration has agreed to extend the COVID-19 side-letter agreement that provides enhanced wages, benefits and protections to state employees on Vermont’s frontlines, battling COVID-19, providing critical testing and aiding Vermonters in need during the pandemic.
This is very welcome news, because, as of last Friday the Administration was not agreeable to an extension, even after repeated requests to extend from VSEA Bargaining Teams, leaders and staff.
The COVID-19 agreement was also extended to Vermont Judiciary Branch employees.
At Tuesday’s VSEA Board of Trustees’ meeting, trustees voted to pass a resolution for the union to issue the following statement on the death of George Floyd:
“VSEA stands in solidarity with George Floyd’s family. We demand justice for George Floyd. We demand an end to unnecessary violence at the hands of police who have sworn to serve and protect. Our union stands with the Black Lives Matter movement.”
