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

A key organizer of the United! slate four years ago, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) activist David Van Deusen, stepped down as Vermont AFL-CIO president after two terms in September. (He recounts his stormy tenure in a forthcoming book entitled Insurgent Labor.) After another highly competitive election campaign, state labor council delegates chose Katie Maurice, a thirty-one-year-old fellow member of AFSCME and the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) as his successor.