Unions representing workers across Burlington have co-signed an open letter opposing the controversial “Burlington Forward” resolution, which is due to come up for a vote at tonight’s Burlington City Council meeting.
The resolution, drafted by City Council President Ben Traverse and supported by the Democrats on the council, is the latest and flashiest offering in a years-long campaign by elected Democrats and their business owner allies to aggressively push people out of public spaces who they feel detract from downtown commerce: namely, those without housing, those facing mental health challenges, and those with substance addiction. The resolution has met significant opposition from community members, frontline medical and social services workers, and advocacy groups including the ACLU, criticizing its reliance on punitive and carceral methods that do not address the underlying systemic causes at play. Many have criticized the resolution for proposing a local version of the harsh “law and order” policies of the Trump Administration.
The resolution has undergone revisions since its initial release in July, but its core remains the same. The unions co-signing the statement include workers who work downtown at Gaku Ramen and Partizanfilm, as well as those who provide health and social supports to community members at UVM Medical Center and Howard Center. The coalition Vermont May Day Strong co-convened a panel last month at City Hall with the Vermont Progressive Party discussing the problems with the resolution and offering alternatives.
In an email on Friday, Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak raised substantive and procedural concerns with the resolution, pointing to inaccurate data, strategies not rooted in best practices from the field, mandates for city personnel that conflict with existing laws and collective bargaining agreements, and the fact that the round of revisions made last week were done so outside of the usual City Council committee amendment process. Mulvaney-Stanak urged Councilors Traverse and Schachter to not introduce the resolution tonight and instead work with her to collaboratively develop a new policy document.
Unions and community groups are urging Burlingtonians to come to tonight’s 6:00pm City Council meeting to oppose the resolution, and will hold a rally outside City Hall at 5:30pm.
To Burlington’s Mayor and City Councilors,
We, the undersigned unions, issue this open letter to oppose the misnamed resolution, “Burlington Forward,” currently under consideration in the Burlington City Council. It will not take the city forward, but backward.
We are in the midst of a social crisis in Burlington, our state, and the entire country. Its causes are obvious: jobs do not pay livable wages; housing is unaffordable; and healthcare as well as social services are inadequate and inaccessible. The federal and state governments’ deep cuts to funding will only exacerbate this crisis.
Backed by local millionaires and businesses, the Burlington Forward resolution unsurprisingly does not address any of its causes. Instead, it advocates spending money on failed law and order policies that will make our social crisis worse. It proposes that the city hire more police, arrest and jail more people, create volunteer public safety teams to issue citations, evict homeless from the encampments, and ban syringe services from the business district.
These policies will waste money on policing and incarceration in an attempt to increase profits for businesses downtown. And all of this is happening while Howard Center and UVM Medical Center are cutting unionized jobs and critical services. On top of that, we face Medicaid cuts this January that will deprive 60,000 Vermonters of healthcare, making them more prone to illnesses, homelessness, and addiction. The cuts also threaten unionized institutions with yet more layoffs and speedups.
The resolution’s law and order response will not address these harms but add to them by harassing, arresting, jailing, and evicting people. Already, the city has paid out over $1.5 million since 2019 in cases of police discrimination and brutality, especially against Black and Brown people. Moreover, its call for unionized city workers to join volunteer patrols will put pressure and potentially undue burdens on an already thin and over-stretched workforce that itself has been the object of austerity measures.
We call on the Mayor and City Council to vote down this resolution and pursue real solutions. These include taxing the rich to fund education, programs for jobs with livable wages, affordable housing, single-payer healthcare, accessible syringe services and counseling for drug addiction, and social services for those with mental illnesses.
Burlington should set an example of caring for people, not punishing them. The Mayor and City Council, service providers, and its unions should unite to pressure the state government to fund our community. That is the only way to overcome our social crisis and guarantee that Burlington becomes safe, equitable, and affordable for all.
Sincerely,
AFSCME 1674
UVM Staff United
UVM Medical Center Support Staff United
Partizanunited
UVM’s UE 267
Gakru UnitedList in formation. To endorse, email VT May Day Strong at vtmaydaystrong@gmail.com.
Patrick is a writer and organizer based in northern Vermont. He is on the editorial collective for The Rake Vermont.
