VCORE's Proposals for VEA Convention
VCORE's New Business Items (NBIs) for the 2024 VEA Delegate Assembly
The Virginia Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators (VCORE), including local chapters and at-large members working within the Virginia Education Association’s (VEA) local unions around the Commonwealth are proud to introduce the following New Business Items (NBIs) at the 2024 VEA Delegate Assembly in Hampton from April 11-13th. At this convention of union delegates from around Virginia, attendees will hear from members as they make proposals in the form of NBIs to guide VEA’s state level work for the next year.
The NBIs listed below were written, introduced, and seconded by VCORE members, and will be up for debate and vote at the 2024 VEA Delegate Assembly. It is our conviction that these NBIs align our practice as rank-and-file union members participating in the governance of our state level union. Key principles from VCORE’s points of unity, specifically: class struggle unionism, public education for the people, international solidarity, and building a movement of community educators who see themselves as members of the global working class have guided the development of these NBIs. We encourage all VEA members who agree with these NBIs to contact their local union leadership to demand their vote in support of these proposals.
VCORE NBIs for 2024 include:
Signing on to the National Labor Network for Ceasefire statement, which calls for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, and notifying all members of VEA’s alignment with this coalition. At the time of writing, the VCORE member who submitted this NBI was told by the VEA Executive Director that the NBI was out of order. VCORE members plan to challenge this ruling at the VEA Delegate Assembly. How this NBI is out of order when the VEA’s national affiliate, the National Education Association (NEA), has signed on to this statement already, remains to be seen.
Empowering worker militancy by adding legislative priorities for the 2025 General Assembly session that would repeal the ban on public sector strikes and repeal Right-to-Work laws.
Dismantling the standardized testing regime in Virginia by adding legislative priorities for the 2025 General Assembly session that would decouple testing from school graduation, allow English Learners to take tests in their native language, empower more families to opt their children out of standardized testing, and repeal the negative consequences that can be imposed on schools with low test scores.
Prioritizing the health and safety of all staff and students that teach and learn in public schools by returning safe indoor air quality, which narrowly missed passing this session, in the legislative priority for 2025.
We should be clear that our efforts to transform the VEA are most powerful and most fruitful when organizing from the bottom up, in our worksites and local school districts, and through local VCORE chapters that challenge top-down decision making in our local unions. It is our belief that the formation of the Richmond Chapter of VCORE was pivotal in the Richmond Education Association's winning of collective bargaining rights in 2021. In Richmond, rank-and-file workers began to see themselves as the union in their workplaces and successfully organized a broad-based community coalition alongside workers to demand the return of collective bargaining to Richmond Public Schools. Any rank-and-file education workers wanting to learn more about rebuilding their local unions from the bottom up should reach out to VCORE at: virginiacaucus@gmail.com