wide organization and like a lot of time some people asked like what is where is the worker center and the workers center is not a physical location it's an organization of people who are fighting for their human rights but we do have a physical office and this is it's and we also this space isn't just the vermont worker centers office it's also in a lot of ways a hub for community organizing and labor organizing in the burlington area so in addition to the vermont workers center migrant justice also has their office in this building and we share the space with them we have other groups who you who we who are part of our burlington office space hug like the you we the union that represents the workers at city market and workers  unions use their office for their meetings and for get togethers and to plan things and so it's kind of a community hub here in burlington at but the vermont workers center is a statewide organization and we have members  we call them organizing committees there are little groups of members all over the state that me and carry out the work for the workers center and those are all over the state county by county but this is the place where of the chintan county organizing committee meets every other thursday and yet if you were here this is probably the quietest it'll ever be normally there's people on these computers or in that office in that office have a little meeting over there some folks on thursday evenings for our members who are part of our organizing committee which is like the core team of members who are planning our activities in this area and they're just ordinary people who have joined the workers center because they want to fight for human rights together and we meet here every other thursday and i feed and of the meeting will usually have food and people will hang out and talk and just spend some time together and actually the person who just walked in of these are friends from up stairs at c c t v and they're just doing a little spotlight on the workers center i don't know i put you on the spot but i came in for is some of calling basically given what's happening in washington right now with health care people are really worried that they're going to lose access to the care that they have which is already not adequate enough for the ball and so we're saying more than ever right now we need to we need our governor and legislature to actually implement ak forty eight vermont universal health care law and these are petitions to the governor and legislature asking them to do that but when  actually use them for is both to to to put pressure on the governor and legislature but also to use as an opportunity to get out and talk to people in our communities ask what their health care situation is there's a little place for people to write their personal story and just build relationships and connections because we know that a petition isn't going to win us universal health care but large numbers of people coming together working together and having our voices heard is actually was going to yes change that to keep working f you want to give him a call and see if you can come back and bring him by that be thousand and seven which was years ago and i was a student at u v m at the time and i was one of those students who is a massive amount of students that was all of my time and was there i learned from a group of students who was organizing that the top administrators at the university were making lots and lots of money meanwhile the folks who work to make the university  run the lowest paid workers often had to work two or three jobs just to make the bare minimum of survival and so and then meanwhile i'm going into all this debt where is all that money going you know so it doesn't seem right to me and i got involved with  group that was organizing around livable wages for the workers on campus and through that i met folks at the workers center and found out about the health care is a human right campaign and because my family had really struggled with access to health care because my family had really struggled with access to health care when i was a kid that really hit home for me and i wanted to join that  also what kind of stuck me at the worker center why i'm still here ten years later is because it's really a home it's really a community where ordinary people  struggling to have access to the things that they need to live dignified lives come together to say this is not the system we want for our world we have ideas for a better system and we're going to work together to make that happen and we have a we have a plan and a strategy for how we're going to do that and so that was really what made me stay and why i'm still here because i still believe that we can do that and because now i have a community of people hundreds of people all over the state that we're in it together and and growing so the workers center is an organization that's a bow how shall i say this so who's a firm on worker center as it were membership organization merge sort of like a union for the community it's not based out of one work place or one kind of worker but we are an organization for people and when we say workers center we young people were the ones that we don't currently own enough to just survive we need to work or do something else to be able to and to be able to get the things we need to live and live and survive and so that's what we mean by workers out the worker center and right now what we see is that our system in the society in this country is such that most people can't do that there's a vast amount of in quality and there's a very wealthy people and there's lots and lots of us who don't have what we need and so when you look at you could look at there's lots of different issues that affect our communities the ways that we struggle to make a living in the ways that we struggle to ask access health care the ways that racism divides us and pits against each other and it's very dangerous and harmful to many people in our communities that we're immigration system forces people into very difficult situations and so we at the workers center see that although as part of one system where though there is a wealthy few that make decisions that affect all the rest of us and we don't get a say in the decisions that affect our lives and that if we had a greater voice and we had a system that was actually based on human rights and based on meaning people's needs for  everybody that we would be able to overcome that and so we've actually chosen the health care as a human right campaign as a place to really focus on because we think it has the potential to set an example for that so many of us are impacted by health care in different ways so it's an opportunity for us to come together around something we haven't common it's an opportunity for us to set an example of how our system could work that's not about making profit for insurance companies but rather for actually providing care and human need for those of us in our communities so even though health care is the thing that we're really focused on right now it's not just about health care it's about health care as an example of how we want to see the world work in general so that that's a big part of what we're doing right now and so in order to do that we believe that we need to be organized and we actually can if we took all of the activists and all the people who have been coming out to marches and rallies many of them which has been so inspiring over the last few months and we all got together and even then that wouldn't be enough people to make change what we see our task at the workers center is that we have to go out and talk to those folks in our communities who are struggling to meet their needs and struggling with health care and other issues but not yet not yet seeing themselves as part of a movement to change that and not having their voice people heard of the conversation about what should be different and how we should get there and so we're going out  like you said mentioned going to our church to talk to people ask them to climb the chechens and see if they want to get involved but we also have been getting out all over the state knocking on doors in communities and and talking to people and right now we're asking people to come out to the green mountain care board hearings to share their stories about how the health care crisis is impacting them and that's one of many things we're doing to build the drumbeat for universal health care increases they want more money for health care plans money that comes from us people trying to already struggling to afford health care and the ground care board has to approve them and they hold a public hearing on whether or not they should do that right now blue cross blue shield is requesting over twelve percent on average rate increase for their insurance plans which i don't know if you've heard but most people in vermont aren't getting a twelve percent raise and so and health care is there any pretty on affordable so we're people to come out and share their stories about why we not only need to not raise the rates on our current health insurance plans to run health care act but we actually need to scrap that system altogether and move towards universal health care system this gr know most of us don't know about these races and we get the that's right and that's great and so we're going to be getting folks to come out and share their stories and hopefully make an impact on that but more than anything get connected to each other so that we can continue that struggle together that's great thank you for inviting us yes thank you for coming b