Local government employees in Virginia's largest jurisdiction are about to launch a new union.
Fairfax County is having boom times for collective bargaining; recent years have seen police, firefighters and teachers form unions. Now, almost 12,000 general government employees in Fairfax County are about to consider approving a new agreement. LaNoral Thomas is president of SEIU 512.
"To ensure that workers rights are protected at a time when so many rights are under attack and there's just so much unease in the country, the fact that county employees have a union contract that will guarantee their wages, their benefits, their job protections," Thomas says. "It is a huge, huge victory and a step forward."
Victor Chen at Virginia Commonwealth University says the agreement between SEIU 512 and Fairfax County is a huge win for labor.
"Public sector unions tend to be a bright spot in the union movement because they tend to be easier to organize than the private sector and nationally," Chen says. "You have about a third of public sector workers being unionized compared to just nine percent of the overall union rate."
Now that union officials and government leaders have struck a deal, the next step is for the workers to ratify the contract in a vote. If they agree, government workers in Fairfax will have the largest scale collective bargaining operation anywhere in Virginia.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
