The Head of Vermont’s AFL-CIO Wants to Democratize Your Union
Vermont State Labor Council, AFL-CIO President David Van Deusen.
By Joe Maniscalco
Vermont AFL-CIO leader David Van Deusen is sitting outside a tavern in Montpelier about to grab a beer when he starts talking about how important independent journalism is to the American Labor Movement.
“It’s crucial,” he says. “The mainstream corporate media pays passing attention to organized labor, and passing attention to the true needs of working-class people. They get caught up in the box scores of the different political parties and who’s maneuvering for what. You think those working people in there give a damn about about who’s maneuvering for what in the Senate right now?”
The Harley Wide Glide-riding Van Deusen and his UNITED slate was first elected to the the Vermont AFL-CIO’s top leadership position in 2019 on a 10-Point Program of progressive change and rank & file empowerment.
“We think it’s time to stop putting millions and millions into campaigns for candidates who couldn’t give a rat’s ass for the working man and woman, and instead put it into organizing. ”
That program, which is now the Vermont AFL-CIO’s official platform, advocates union democratization, embraces the strike, supports single-payer healthcare, and works against reflexively funneling money to political parties who consistently fail to deliver for working-class families.
“We think it’s time to stop putting millions and millions into campaigns for candidates who couldn’t give a rat’s ass for the working man and woman, and instead put it into organizing,” Van Deusen says. “If you do the same thing — and keep not winning — keep seeing union density going down — that’s the definition of insanity. And that’s what the old guard of the labor movement across the United States has been doing forever.”
This summer, Van Deusen and Liz Medina — the first woman to serve as Vermont State Labor Council executive director — ran into a brick wall at the AFL-CIO National Convention in Philadelphia when they attempted to raise progressive issues from UNITED’s 10-Point Program.
Van Deusen still counts it as a win, however.
“Even though the national leadership did not embrace our way of looking at things — even though they actively sought to kill and not allow free debate and a vote on various resolutions on Democracy and defending Democracy — we were able to talk about these issues from the floor,” he says. “We see this as a victory because we sparked conversations with Central Labor Councils across the country, which we are going to continue to develop in the coming years.”
When he looks at the history of the American Labor Movement Van Deusen sees union power diminishing as relationships with powerful heads of state “started becoming more important to certain high-raking union leaders than their relations with the rank & file.”
“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see how that works,” Van Deusen says. “Fast forward to today. Let’s see what we get for having Democrats in control of all branches of government. Did we get the Pro Act? Well, certainly not. Are we going to get the Pro Act? Look, you’d have to be totally nuts say that this is gonna pass even with Democrats in control of all branches.”
Quite the contrary, Van Deusen says Republicans have been able to consolidate power through the court system and actually erode worker rights nationwide on Democrats’ watch.
“Here’s the thing — politicians aren’t gonna do the right thing because it’s the right thing — politicians aren’t gonna do the right thing because we put thousands of dollars into their campaign coffers or send some guy or some gal with a tie on to Washington and lobby for it,” he says. “Politicians are gonna do the right thing when they fear us. And they’re not gonna fear us until — like the 1930s — we’re able to have hundreds of thousands of people in the streets and shut down whole industries if need be. But without that fear, we’re playing a shell game.”
According to Van Deusen, further democratizing the Vermont AFL-CIO over the last three years has resulted in rank & file members across the the Green Mountain State becoming more energetic and engaged than they’ve been in generations.
“We’re actually getting folks involved,” he says. “And not just in a couple of minor things here and there on the behalf of candidates — but coming in and debating the future of Labor, coming in and being part of the decision-making process and what our strategic path will be over the next two, three, four, five years.”
The Vermont AFL-CIO recently debated and passed a resolution supporting an amendment codifying the right of all women to control their own bodies.
“That resolution passed overwhelmingly and it committed us both legally and any other means to defend those rights should they come under further federal attack from a reactionary Washington, D.C.,” Van Deusen says. “Instead of spending our PAC money this year, on a bunch of politicians who may support us one day and not the next — we’re doing radio ads and organizing support for a constitutional amendment which will be voted on in November in Vermont, which will forever in our State Constitution protect a woman’s right to control her own body and have an abortion.”
Vermont leads a small group of only four U.S. states where union density has actually increased over the last 20 years.
Van Deusen, who’s also a member of Labor Against Racism & War's national Representatives Assembly and the Democratic Socialists of America, says the labor movement simply cannot afford to be afraid of democracy.
“We have to embrace democracy,” he says. “The only solution to the problem of democracy is more democracy — I believe in that very strongly, the UNITED slate believes in that very strongly. It’s a multi-front effort to build a democracy within our own ranks and also defend it and expand it in society at large, which would result in the empowerment of the working class because we are the overwhelming majority.”
What the labor movement doesn’t need, Van Deusen says is “a few people trying to game the system, trying to figure out what the right tactic is and then use union members like pawns in a chess game to try to achieve those ends.”
“We need all of our members, the rank & file, engaged in the basic discussion about why we need to fight back on issues X,Y and Z, why we need action to defend our rights and build our union power,” he says. “And by taking part in those discussions, by voting and raising their hands to take a stance on whatever it may be — then they’ll develop a sense of ownership over it. Without that sense of ownership we can’t expect people to take part in militant action — the type that can push the politicians into doing right or make foundational change in society.”
Sadly, Van Deusen says trade unionists have inherited a national AFL-CIO that’s “extremely undemocratic” where “500 delegates more or less, mostly appointed, elect the president and all the national officers for 12.5 million organizations.”
“If I was to go all the shops — every goddamned one in the state of Vermont — and I were to ask every single rank & file member who’s the national president of the AFL-CIO — out of 11,500 members I bet ya I get ten people who know the answer to that because they’re so disengaged and far removed and they have no say in it.”
Van Desusen motions back over to the tavern.
“The people in there care about bread and butter issues,” he says. “They care about inflation, they care about if they can bring their kids into a doctor tomorrow. They care about how much the rent is and how much the mortgages are.”
And he says, “Organized labor needs people out there digging and not following the corporate line. We need to support that and we need to support organizing in the journalistic field, too.”