Argentina court suspends SOME OF 

Milei's 'mega-decree' labor law reforms

Argentine judges on Wednesday suspended labor law changes that form part of a mega-decree of sweeping economic reforms and deregulation announced by the country's libertarian  new  FASCIST  president, Javier Milei.

Issued on: 04/01/2024 -

Argentina's new president Javier Milei gestures at the crowd from a balcony of Casa Rosada Presidential Palace on his inauguration day in Buenos Aires on December 10, 2023. 

The CGT trade union body had challenged the changes, which technically took effect last Friday, on grounds that they erode basic worker protections such as the right to strike and parental leave.

The three judges of Argentina's labor appeals chamber froze elements of Milei's decree which, among other things, increased the legal job probation period from three to eight months, reduced compensation in case of dismissal, and cut pregnancy leave.

Judge Alejandro Sudera questioned the "necessity" and "urgency" of the decree Milei signed on December 20 -- just days after taking office -- and suspended the measures until they can be properly considered by Congress.

Some of the measures appeared to be "repressive or punitive in nature" and it was not clear how their application would aid Milei's objective of "creating real jobs," Sudera added in a ruling distributed to the media.

Solicitor General Rodolfo Barra told AFP that the government will appeal Wednesday's ruling.

Thousands took to the streets last week to protest the reforms of self-proclaimed "anarcho-capitalist" Milei, who won elections in November with promises of slashing state spending as Argentina deals with an economic crisis, including triple-digit inflation.

The CGT has called a general strike for January 24.

'Rebuilding the country'

The measures have drawn heated debate among jurists about their constitutionality and is the subject of several court challenges.

When he announced his mega-degree, Milei said the goal was to "start along the path to rebuilding the country... and start to undo the huge number of regulations that have held back and prevented economic growth."

The decree changed or scrapped more than 350 economic regulations in a country accustomed to heavy government intervention in the market.

It eliminates a law regulating rent, envisages the privatisation of state enterprises and terminates some 7,000 civil service contracts.

Latin America's third-biggest economy is on its knees after decades of debt and financial mismanagement, with inflation surpassing 160 percent year-on-year and 40 percent of Argentines living in poverty.

Milei has pledged to curb inflation, but warned that economic "shock" treatment is the only solution and that the situation will get worse before it improves.

The 53-year-old won a resounding election victory on a wave of fury over the country's decades of economic crises marked by debt, rampant money printing, inflation and fiscal deficit.

Milei has targeted spending cuts equivalent to five percent of gross domestic product.

Shortly after taking office, his administration devalued Argentina's peso by more than 50 percent, and announced huge cuts in generous state subsidies of fuel and transport.

Milei has also announced a halt to all new public construction projects and a year-long suspension of state advertising.

Argentines remain haunted by hyperinflation of up to 3,000 percent in 1989-1990 and a dramatic economic implosion in 2001.

(AFP)

Court suspends new president’s changes to labour rules

Protesters wearing national flags, rally against the economic reforms of President Javier Milei outside the Supreme Court (AP)

THU, 04 JAN, 2024 - 
ASSOCIATED PRESS REPORTERS

Argentina’s new president Javier Milei suffered a judicial blow when a court suspended labour rule changes which form part of sweeping deregulation and austerity measures aimed at reviving the struggling economy.

Wednesday’s ruling by a three-judge court followed a legal challenge the General Labor Confederation, the main union group, which argued the changes affected workers rights.


Mr Milei’s decree, announced in December, included increasing job probation from three to eight months, reducing severance compensation and allowing the possibility of dismissal for workers taking part of blockades during some protests.

Alejandro Sudera, one of the three judges, said the administration went beyond its authority to decree labour changes, which needed to discussed and approved by Congress.

Argentina’s President Javier Milei speaks outside the Congress in Buenos Aires (AP)

The government said it would appeal the court’s ruling.

The union confederation said the decision “puts a stop to the regressive and anti-worker labour reform”.

Labour activists have questioned whether Mr Milei, a self-described anarcho-capitalist who has long railed against the country’s “political caste,” can impose the measures using emergency decree to bypass the legislature.

On December 20 he announced sweeping initiatives to transform Argentina’s economy, including easing government regulation and allowing privatisation of state-run industries. The libertarian economist made about 300 changes.

The measures have stirred protests in the capital city Buenos Aires.

Since his inauguration on December 10, the president has devalued the country’s currency by 50%, cut transport and energy subsidies and said his government will not renew contracts for more than 5,000 state employees hired before he took office.

Ode to the father: Bangladesh’s political personality cult


By AFP

January 3, 2024


Once sidelined from official history, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman is now the subject of a personality cult that designates him 'Father of the Nation'

 - Copyright AFP Munir UZ ZAMAN

Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina still grieves the assassination of her father — the country’s founder — nearly 50 years ago, and her government ensures the nation grieves with her.

Once sidelined from official history, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman is now the subject of a personality cult that designates him “Father of the Nation”.

Hasina has foregrounded his legacy in what critics say is an effort to entrench her ruling Awami League, which dominates national politics and is set to sweep elections Sunday following an opposition boycott.

Her government has also enacted stiff punishments for any comments, written work or social media posts that could be construed as defaming his legacy.

“She has basically introduced a secular blasphemy law in the country for her father — the kind we see in one-party states,” a senior human rights activist in Bangladesh told AFP, asking for anonymity out of fear of retribution.

Since his daughter returned to office in 2009, Mujib’s visage has appeared on every banknote and in hundreds of public murals across the South Asian nation of 170 million people.

Dozens of roads and institutes of higher learning have been named after him, and Hasina’s government changed the constitution to require that his portrait be hung in every school, government office and diplomatic mission.

At the centre of this project of national commemoration is Hasina’s childhood home in an upmarket neighbourhood of the capital Dhaka.

Now a museum, the residence is where her father, uncle and three brothers were gunned down by disgruntled army officers at the break of dawn in August 1975.

The walls are still pockmarked with bullet holes from that day, in rooms that otherwise faithfully preserve the books, smoking pipe and other artefacts of Mujib’s life, with hundreds visiting daily to pay their respects.

“I could see how he and his family were brutally murdered,” student Abdur Rahim ibne Iftekhar, 21, told AFP inside. “It was heart-wrenching.”



– ‘Betrayal of the hopes’ –



Mujib was the key political figure during a period of growing agitation for independence from Pakistan, which had governed the territory now known as Bangladesh since the 1947 end of British colonial rule.

He was imprisoned by Pakistan’s military regime at the outset of a horrific 1971 war that liberated his country and killed as many as three million people — most of them civilians in present-day Bangladesh.

Mujib was the first post-independence leader but the tumultuous years that followed saw Bangladesh struggle through the economic devastation imposed by the war, including a famine in which hundreds of thousands of people died.

Towards the end of his life he abolished multi-party democracy and imposed media restrictions that shuttered all but four state-controlled newspapers.

Hasina refers to his assassination in a 1975 military coup in almost every speech she gives, her voice often choking with emotion.

It was “the betrayal of the hopes and aspirations of the people of the soil”, she once wrote.



– ‘Cannot be questioned’ –



In 2018, Hasina’s government enacted a cybersecurity law that has been used to arrest numerous people accused of defaming Mujib’s legacy.

A city mayor from her party was arrested in 2021 for refusing to approve a mural of Mujib, because the traditions of some among Bangladesh’s majority Muslim faith consider depictions of people in murals or statues to be idolatry.

Opposition parties say that the veneration of Mujib and the laws protecting him from criticism reflect a broader erosion of civil liberties under Hasina and the consolidation of her party’s grip over democratic institutions.

“It is a clear tilt towards an authoritarian one-party state,” a senior opposition official, who also asked for anonymity, told AFP.

Some analysts believe Hasina’s motivations to be more personal.

Mujib’s contributions to Bangladesh’s independence struggle were minimised by the military government that replaced him.

Some of his killers received coveted diplomatic postings and all were controversially indemnified from prosecution — a law revoked by Hasina’s government.

All five were hanged after she returned to office.

“Hasina wants to make sure that this and future generations do not encounter such a situation,” Ali Riaz, a professor at Illinois State University, told AFP.

“The objective is to ensure that Sheikh Mujib’s standing and contributions in history cannot be questioned.”

Bangladesh polls 2024: Scent of an election foretold

Out of 44 registered political parties in Bangladesh, around 29 are in the fray. Voters will choose from among 2,800 candidates to elect 300 MPs to Parliament

Devadeep Purohit

 Dhaka 

Telegraph Calcutta

Published 04.01.24

Members of the Bangladesh Army arrive at a temporary camp in Dhaka on Wednesday after the army was deployed across the country to help the civil administration during the general election.

Sourced by the Telegraph.

What’s the point of covering this election, the co-passenger on the Calcutta-Dhaka flight asked.

Flying time of 30 minutes does not allow scope for a meaningful conversation. The chatty businessman from Dhaka’s upscale Nikunja area, however, had a lot to
talk about — from his passion for cricket to his love of Calcutta’s cuisine. The Bangladesh elections — scheduled on January 7 — came in a bit late into the conversation when he learnt why this correspondent was travelling to Bangladesh.

“Everyone is aware of the outcome and so there is no interest.... You certainly don’t need to be in Bangladesh to know that Sheikh Hasina is returning to power,” he smirked, the comment coinciding with the crackle from the cockpit that the flight had landed at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka.

The conversation ended abruptly as he rushed to the immigration counter for a faster exit from the airport.

Out of 44 regitered political parties in Bangladesh, around 29 are in the fray. Voters will choose from among 2,800 candidates to elect 300 MPs to Parliament. But since the main Opposition force, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, is not participating in the election, the Hasina-led Awami League is all set to form the government for the fourth consecutive term. The BNP had stayed away in 2014 too and contested half-heartedly in 2018. The party and its allies are boycotting the polls this time because their main demands for elections under a caretaker government and the resignation of Hasina have not been met. They are also trying to influence the citizens to stay away from the booths. Given the track record of the BNP, which enjoys the support of Jamaat-e-Islami, in inflicting violence to press for its demands, there is fear in the air about the polls.


What met the eye

The scenes at the airports — both in Calcutta and Dhaka — however did not suggest a lack of interest in the elections.

“It seems all Bangladeshis, who were in Calcutta for shopping or medical reasons, are rushing back to the country for the polls…. This morning I saw people checking out from the hotel in droves,” a businessman from Old Dhaka said, referring to the scenes he witnessed at a Sudder Street hotel.


Most Bangladeshi tourists prefer staying at hotels in the Free School Street, Marquis Street or Sudder Street areas of Calcutta.


The scent of an election hung heavy on the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport as scores of international journalists and observers were seen crowding at the temporary help desk set up by the poll panel.


The leading newspapers were full of reports on poll-related clashes, deployment of armed forces across the country from Wednesday, and claims and counter-claims of the ruling party, its dissidents and the Opposition.


Although the BNP has decided to stay away from the polls and a majority of its top leaders are behind bars on various charges, all the prominent newspapers carried reports on the party’s outreach programmes to convince people to boycott the elections.

Election-related reports and talk shows make up more than 90 per cent of the content on audio-visual and digital platforms, said the editor of a television network.

“People have an insatiable appetite for poll-related news and we are trying our best to meet the demand,” said the editor.

Poll-bound Dhaka looked uncannily like Indian cities in the run-up to elections as giant cut-outs of candidates and their campaign material could be spotted here, there and everywhere.

Needless to say, a smiling Hasina eclipsed all other faces across the length and breadth of Dhaka.

Participatory or not

Most discussions in Bangladesh ahead of Sunday’s polls revolved around one main theme — is it a participatory and inclusive election?

This question cannot be wished away as the Awami League dissidents — more than 200 of them are in the fray against the party’s official nominees — have emerged as the main Opposition in the poll battle in the absence of the BNP.

Jatiya Party, which claims to be an Opposition party, is in the running, but as the Awami League has left the field vacant in 26-odd seats, very few people in Bangladesh consider it an Opposition party.

Hasina has also left six seats for a 14-party alliance that includes fringe Left forces like the Workers’ Party.

Against this backdrop, the BNP has launched a campaign to decry the polls, calling them a “sham” and a direct assault on democracy. A section of the civil society is echoing the argument.

“This cannot be called an election as the main Opposition party is not contesting.... The ruling party is trying to create a competitive charade by donating some seats to some smaller parties.

Most of the so-called dissidents of the ruling party are also fielded as part of a larger plan to make the polls look participatory,” said a young professional working with an international agency. He requested anonymity.

There is, however, a counterargument as several people in Bangladesh — sharply divided along the Awami League and anti-Awami League binary — are asking what prevented the BNP from participating.

While the last 15 years under Hasina have produced stellar development fruits for Bangladesh which has emerged as one of the strongest economic forces in this region, it is also true that she faces the challenge of anti-incumbency because of high inflation, depleted foreign exchange reserves and lack of employment opportunities for educated youth.

Several Western countries, including the US, have also raised questions about the lack of media freedom and human rights violations.

Some observers feel that the BNP — crippled by the prolonged illness and incarceration of its chairperson and former Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia and the absence of her son Tareq Rehman, who is in exile in London for over 15 years — squandered its prospects by choosing not to exploit the situation.

Several BNP insiders have been saying in private for years that staying away from the polls in 2014 and putting up only a half-hearted fight in 2018 — the party withdrew its candidates from most constituencies on poll day citing electoral malpractice — have caused irreparable damage to the party’s organisational strength.

Several anti-Awami League sections of Bangladesh agree that the BNP’s decision of staying away from the polls and banking heavily on the US — to ensure fulfilment of its demands or countermanding of the elections — cannot be justified.

Elephant in the room

On Wednesday, Hasina said the January 7 national election would be free, fair and neutral and would become a milestone in the country’s democratic history.

“People will cast votes for their favourite candidates and make them victorious. That is our target,” she said with resounding confidence.

This confidence — in the backdrop of the biggest Opposition party’s resistance to polls and reports on the US’s apparent support to the anti-Awami League forces — veered the discussions towards the elephant in the room: India.

A topic that the garrulous businessmen avoided deftly by shying away from any comments on how Hasina is able to push through the polls has been brought to the centre-stage by some BNP politicians.

“The Indian government’s support for Sheikh Hasina is deeply mysterious and politically motivated.... The Indian government has made the people of Bangladesh its opponent.

“However, the people of Bangladesh consider their Indian fellows friendly,” BNP senior joint secretary-general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi said during a virtual media briefing.

“Our nearest neighbour is India, which is a democratic country. How does the Indian government support an undemocratic administration?” he asked.

While the Indian foreign ministry establishment has repeatedly stated — contrary to the US which tried to push for a caretaker government and Hasina’s resignation — that the election is an internal matter of Bangladesh, the BNP has tried to propagate its hypothesis on India’s support for Hasina.

“Show one instance wherein we tried to influence the poll process or advocated support for any party this time.... We have stated that we want a free and fair poll as per the constitutional provisions in Bangladesh,” said a senior official in the Indian security establishment.

Multiple sources said that the BNP leadership had approached New Delhi — some of its leaders had flown to the Indian capital — seeking its support.

“Bangladesh is a very important neighbour and India wants a stable, democratic and development-oriented government there.... But it’s for Bangladeshis to elect the government they want,” said another source.

A strategic affairs expert said that the reality is much more complex than what the BNP has alleged or what the Indian side has publicly stated.

“Bangladesh is very strategic for India because of its close proximity.... Electoral outcomes in Bangladesh will surely have a bearing on India.

Given the track record of the BNP between 2001 and 2006, when they supported and aided Indian insurgent groups, New Delhi will always have trust issues with them. One should also not forget that their main ally is Jamaat-e-Islami, which is a stated anti-India force,” said the expert.

Angola's First Gold Refinery to Be Completed This Year

3 JANUARY 2024
Angola Press Agency (Luanda)

Luanda — The first gold refinery in Angola, which is being built in the Viana Industrial Park in Luanda, will be completed later this year (2024), the Minister of Mineral Resources, Oil and Gas, Diamantino Azevedo, said on Wednesday.

The infrastructure, whose first stone was laid in June 2022, is the result of the Angolan Executive's commitment to promoting the country's mineral value chain, capitalizing on the prospecting, exploration, transformation and commercialization operations of these resources.

Speaking during the New Year's greetings ceremony, the minister assured that the sector will restructure stalled projects and develop gold refining capacity.

The country's first gold refinery is an initiative of the Ministry of Mineral Resources, Oil and Gas, through Geoangol, a company owned by Endiama, expected to employ more than 80 workers.

In addition to this venture, Angola has 28 gold projects, of which 20 are in the prospecting phase, eight with exploration titles.

In 2021, 1,137 ounces were extracted, of the 7,500 projected, representing an execution of 13.82 percent, according to data from the Office of Studies, Planning and Statistics of the Ministry of Mineral Resources, Oil and Gas.

The country's gold subsector has an investment of $62.9 million dollars, of which $48.6 million in exploration and $14.3 million in prospecting.

 JAM/QCB/DOJ




Read the original article on ANGOP.

Oldest pyramid in Indonesia in Gunung Padang? 

Study draws scepticism as opinions vary

The research has fuelled a dispute over the age of a partially excavated site

Mike Ives, Rin Hindryati Cianjur, Indonesia Published 04.01.24

In the Netflix series, Ancient Apocalypse, journalist Graham Hancock visits Gunung Padang, an Indonesian archeological site, to find proof of a lost civilisation — and the potential cataclysm that wiped it out

In a mountainous corner of Indonesia lies a hill, dotted with stone terraces, where people come from around the country to hold Islamic and Hindu rituals. Some say the site has a mystical air, or even that it might hold buried treasure.

The partially excavated site, Gunung Padang, is a relaxing place to spend an afternoon. It’s also at the centre of a raging debate.

Archaeologists say that the hill is a dormant volcano and that ceramics recovered there so far suggest that humans have been using the site for several hundred years or more.

But some Indonesians, including an earthquake geologist and a President who left office in 2014, have suggested that the site may have been built far earlier by an as-yet-undiscovered ancient civilisation. Their narrative has spread for more than a decade within the country but not very far beyond it — until recently.

In 2022, a Netflix documentary series, Ancient Apocalypse, drew on the geologist’s research for an episode about Gunung Padang.

And in October, the geologist published an article in an international scientific journal that has fueled an international dispute over questions of science, ethics and ancient history.

Archaeologists say the study’s most contentious conclusion — that Gunung Padang may be “the oldest pyramid in the world” because its deepest layer appears to have been “sculpted” by humans up to 27,000 years ago — is problematic because it is not based on physical evidence. Indonesia had no history of pyramid construction, they say, and humans in the Paleolithic era, which ended more than 10,000 years ago, could not have constructed pyramids. (The pyramids of Giza in Egypt are only about 4,500 years old.)

The study’s New Jersey-based publisher says it is now conducting an internal investigation, meaning that the journal is “examining concerns shared by the archaeological community”. Several archaeologists have aired their concerns publicly, saying the study is “not worthy of publication” and that the geologist’s claim that the hill was built by humans “just doesn’t make sense”.

In response, the study’s lead author, earthquake geologist Danny Hilman Natawidjaja, said it has been misunderstood.

His supporters include Graham Hancock, a British journalist who starred in the Netflix series and has argued — to his own critics — that archaeologists should be more open to theories that challenge academic orthodoxy.

“This judge-jury-and-executioner model of archaeology, where they can define what is and what is not evidence — what is and is not acceptable as evidence — isn’t helpful in the long term for the progress of human knowledge,” Hancock said in a telephone interview.

Gold in that hill?

Gunung Padang lies near the city of Bandung on Java, Indonesia’s most populous island. Excavation began in the early 1980s, said Lutfi Yondri, an archaeologist with the Bandung provincial government.

Young Indonesians inspired by quixotic efforts to discover lost pyramids in Bosnia later promoted the idea that pointy hills could be hiding lost pyramids, Lutfi said. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s staff organized forums to explore that question, as well as unproven speculation that Gunung Padang might contain buried treasure.

Archaeologists pushed back from the start. But Yudhoyono’s administration continued to finance excavation work at Gunung Padang, and he said after visiting in 2014, near the end of his 10-year term in office, that it could be “the largest prehistoric building in the world”.

The pyramid narrative “has some nationalistic edge to it, and it’s backed by a former President”, said Noel Hidalgo Tan, an archaeologist at the Southeast Asian Regional Centre for Archaeology and Fine Arts in Bangkok.

“That’s why it’s a myth that refuses to die,” he said.

Yudhoyono’s assistant referred questions to Andi Arief, who once organised forums about Gunung Padang as a member of the President’s staff. Arief did not make himself available for an interview.

Science or illusion?

Natawidjaja, the geologist who led the October study, said that he began researching the site in 2011. At the time, he was studying an active fault in the area and noticed that Gunung Padang’s pointy shape made it stand out in a landscape of eroded hillsides.

President Joko Widodo cut off financing for the research after assuming office in 2014. Natawidjaja later published his findings in a recent edition of Archaeological Prospection. The study’s methods and principles are the same ones that he would use to analyse earthquakes, he said in a Zoom interview.

Several archaeologists said the study’s major problem is that it dated the human presence at Gunung Padang based on radiocarbon measurements of soil from drilling samples — not of artifacts recovered from the site.

“The lesson is that radiocarbon dates are not magic, and have important caveats around their interpretation,” archaeologist Rebecca Bradley wrote in a 2016 critique of Natawidjaja’s preliminary findings. (She said in an email that his recently published study struck her as “a more organised recapitulation of the same old stuff”.)

Tan described the study’s attempt to link the soil’s age to human activity as its “biggest logical fallacy”.

The soil’s age is not surprising because soil accumulates over time and deeper layers tend to be older, he added. “But it’s not soil that is tied to construction activity. It’s not soil that’s tied to, say, a fire pit, or soil that’s tied to a burial.”

“It’s just soil,” he said.

Ceramics from the upper layers of Gunung Padang indicates that humans were there as early as the 12th or 13th centuries, and that they built structures atop natural rock formations.

New Vermont AFL-CIO President Is A Labor Reformer & DSA Member

BY STEVE EARLY

 JANUARY 4, 2024
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The logo for AFL–CIO – Fair Use

Editor’s Note: Unlike some local and national unions, AFL-CIO central labor bodies rarely have contested leadership elections, with opposing slates running on platforms offering alternative strategies for reviving the labor movement. In Vermont, there have been two such contests in the last four years, both resulting in 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 executive board. Their goal was to revitalize a moribund organization through membership education, mobilization, and direct action, plus greater independence from the Democratic Party.

Rather than welcoming and applauding this leadership shift, the national AFL-CIO—then headed by the late Richard Trumka—threatened to put the Vermont Labor Council under trusteeship. As recounted by AFSCME activist David Van Deusen, in a forthcoming book from PM Press called Insurgent Labor, this headquarters take-over attempt was averted and reform efforts were able to continue.

A key organizer of the United slate four years ago, Van Deusen stepped down as Vermont AFL-CIO president after two terms in September. After another highly competitive election campaign, state labor council delegates chose Katie Maurice, a 31-year-old fellow member of AFSCME and DSA as his successor.

This time, the United slate again won a majority of the seats on the state fed executive board. Maurice’s running-mate, Ellen Kaye, from the American Federation of Teachers, became executive vice president. And the rest of their all-female leadership team includes Danielle Bombardier, a working member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers who serves as Secretary-Treasurer.

At the convention, Vermont labor activists celebrated new organizing gains and 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.

Steve Early: 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, Vt., our state’s largest social service agency which has a staff of 1,600. After Covid-19 hit, my co-workers 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. Currently, I serve as local secretary. Over the last three years, we have more than doubled our membership–largely through one-on-one conversations at work and home visits.

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, lack of 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 10- point platform later 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 in the race—between your United slate and a 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 State House lobbyist, which cultivated insider-relationships with legislators from both major parties.

The United! Slate, on the other hand, pledged to build rank-and-file power by redoubling our organizing efforts rather than redirect our resources back to lobbying for politicians who sell us out. 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, 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 policy-making 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, healthcare, and social services.

Steve Early: Democratic Left recently ran an account of how “Workers Circles”—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 co-workers 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.

Steve Early has been active in the labor movement since 1972. He was an organizer and international representative for the Communications Workers of American between 1980 and 2007. He is the author of four books, most recently Refinery Town: Big Oil, Big Money and The Remaking of An American City from Beacon Press. He can be reached at Lsupport@aol.com