Download a printable PDF of the program here.
9:00 AM
Registration
10:00 AM
Plenary Session
Building the Resistance to Trump
Auditorium
MC: Annie Schneider (WEA)
Speakers: Claire Whitehouse (UVM Staff United), Migrant Justice, Erin Carter (VT NEA), Jayna Ahsaf (FreeHer)
10:45–11:30am
Workshop Block 1
Organize Everywhere: Building Power at Work and in Communities
Auditorium
Speakers: Annie Schneider (WEA), Matt Gile (WEA)
Experienced activists in unions and social movements will train new people in the ABCs of how to organize in your workplace, community, and school.
Training for Marshalling and De-escalation
Library
Speakers: Community Defense Team
Experienced activists train new people interested in becoming marshals and de-escalators for events and demonstrations.
Get Your Union Strike Ready
Blackbox Theater
Speakers: Kristin Warner (AFSCME)
Experienced union organizers and activists explain how to prepare unions to exercise their greatest power, their ability to strike.
Solidarity Economy, Mutual Aid and Building Community Resilience
Classroom 1
Speakers: Meghan Wayland (NEKO), Audrey Grant (NEKO), Michelle Eddleman McCormick (Cooperation Vermont)
As capitalism continues to spiral climate and societies into crisis, we must build the alternatives for the future. Activists will lay out plans for building a solidarity economy and strengthening community resilience.
Organizing Defense Campaigns Amidst the New McCarthyism
Classroom 2
Speakers: Ashley Smith (Tempest), Migrant Justice, Brett Stokes (VT Law School)
With Trump, the bosses, and universities censoring, suspending, firing, detaining, and deporting workers, experienced activists will train people on how to build public campaigns to defend those attacked and protect all our rights on the job, in the community, and in the public sphere.
12:00–1:00pm
Lunch Break
1:00– 2:30pm
Workshop Block 2
Organizing for Migrant Justice, Workers Rights, Healthcare and Not1More Deportation (Part 1)
Auditorium
Speakers: Organizers from Migrant Justice & Vermont Workers Center
Join Migrant Justice and the Vermont Workers Center in a collective analysis of the roots of oppression, how these issues touch our daily lives and what the societal structures that support these issues are.
Tax the Rich to Pay for Medicaid, Housing, & Jobs
Library
Speakers: Joe Moore (DSA), Keith Brunner (VT Workers Center), Jackson Francis (PSL)
In the face of Trump’s budget cuts, organizers will lay out campaigns, strategies, and tactics that can pressure the state government to re-prioritize its budget and tax the rich to pay for essential programs and jobs.
An Injury to Palestine is an Injury to All
Blackbox Theater
Speakers: VT Labor for Palestine, Unione Sindicale di Base
Amidst an ongoing genocide, Labor for Palestine will explain the urgency of solidarity with Palestine, expose the nature of Israeli apartheid, and facilitate discussion on ideas, strategies, and tactics to win your union or group to adopt Apartheid Free Communities.
Student Organizing in Higher Education
Classroom 1
Speakers: Student Organizers from UVM, Champlain College, Middlebury College
Facing attacks from Trump and university bosses, student activists will lead a workshop exposing the attacks and how to resist and win.
Organizing Solidarity in Racial Justice, Civil Rights, and Democracy
Classroom 2
Speakers: Mark Hughes, Wafic Faour, Rev Arnold Thomas, Diana Keyser, Jen Daniels
Get involved with the Raise Up Justice Civil Rights Movement, the response to the violent racist policy agenda and propaganda that denies our national legacy of slavery while erasing progress to address it, exacting legal and financial punishment for those who raise it while destroying civil rights and democracy!
Organizing the Unorganized
Classroom 3
Speakers: Abbie Curtis (UE)
Union activists will lay out ideas, strategies, and tactics to organize unorganized workplaces and build fighting unions.
3:00– 4:30pm
Workshop Block 3
Organizing for Migrant Justice, Workers Rights, Healthcare and Not1More Deportation (Part 2)
Auditorium
Speakers: Organizers from Migrant Justice & Vermont Workers Center
Come and flip the tree of problems on its head into a tree of collective liberation. Learn about Migrant Justice campaigns for dairy worker rights, Not1More deportation and from the VT Workers Center about Health Care is a Human Right in the context of this international collective resistance activity.
Care Not Incarceration: Stop Vermont’s Plan for New Prisons
Library
Speaker: Jayna Ahsaf (Free Her)
Abolitionist activists will expose Vermont’s current plan to expand its jails, argue that we should fund communities not incarceration, and explain how we can build the struggle.
Building Rank & File Power in Unions
Blackbox Theater
Speakers: Madeleine Dougherty, Tevye Kelman, Matt Gile (VT Schoolworkers United)
In the face of unprecedented attacks on unions, Vermont School Workers United will lead a workshop on how to activate and organize rank and file members to fight for wages, benefits, and rights at work and in the community.
Writing to Serve the People: 5 Ways to Sharpen Your Writing Skills to Inform and Persuade
Classroom 1
Speakers: Editors from The Rake Vermont
Writing is an important tool for any organizer: join us to build your skills and confidence with the written word in all its forms, from social media posts to grassroots journalism and storytelling.
Healthcare is a Human Right
Classroom 2
Speakers: Kate Paarlberg-Kvam (Workers Center), Keith Brunner (Workers Center), Ken Allen (United Academics)
Confronting medicaid cuts, increased premiums and co-pays, and underfunding of hospitals, union and healthcare activists will make the case for medicare for all—including funding for full reproductive and gender-affirming healthcare—and lay out campaigns, strategies, and tactics to win it.
5:00pm
Plenary Session
Where Do We Go From Here?
Auditorium
MC: Elizabeth Dunford (UVM Staff United)
Speakers: Tanya Vyhovsky (Progressive Party), Abbie Curtis (UE), Wafic Faour (Vermont Coalition for Palestinian Liberation), FaRied Munarsyah (People’s Kitchen / VT Worker’s Center), Andy Blanchett (AFSCME 1674)