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Top Stories This Week:

• Displaced VSEA St. Johnsbury Members Receive List Of "Frequently Asked Questions" To Reference As State Begins To Examine If Chemical Residues In Building Had Adverse Impact On Employees’ Health
• State Signs Contract To House Displaced St. Johnsbury Workers!
• VSEA Judiciary Members Go To State House To Lobby Legislators To Fund Their Retro Pay
• Vermont Setting Up To Go Backwards On Private Prisons?

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This afternoon, the Department of Human Resources released a list of "Frequently Asked Questions" to try to address the health and safety concerns of the employees who were recently displaced from State offices on Eastern Avenue in St. Johnsbury. The FAQ also instructs employees on protocol and next steps.

Here is the FAQ

VSEA hopes this document is useful not only to the current employees who were displaced, but also to the state employees who worked at the building and retired, or who worked there at some point in their career and always had questions or concerns.

After a recent, long and well-documented contract fight with the Vermont Court Administrator, VSEA members belonging to the Judiciary Unit were finally able to ratify a new contract in December 2016. The vote to ratify included an agreement from management to conduct an employee wage review, which was completed and found in favor of raises for the Judiciary workers.

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A commentary in Sunday’s Free Press by Millard Cox calls the paper’s go-to Economist Art Wolff out for always blaming state employee and teacher pension plans for dragging down Vermont’s economy. He concludes:

"Labor unions in the private and public sectors have done more to increase the economic power of working people than any other historic factor, and the current levels of wealth inequality in America are directly related to the demise of unions over the past 60 years."

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