This November, Vermonters will vote on Proposal 3, or “Prop 3,” a constitutional amendment advertised as an amendment to protect the right to collectively bargain. But Vermont workers already have that right. The First Amendment protects every worker’s ability to peacefully assemble, associate, and join a labor union if they choose. No constitutional amendment is needed to preserve a freedom that already exists.
What Prop 3 actually does is far more consequential. It would permanently prohibit Vermont from adopting a right-to-work law for either public or private sector employees. It would also prevent any future law that “interferes with, negates, or diminishes” collective bargaining rights. That language could restrict lawmakers from adopting even modest worker protections, such as allowing employees to cancel dues deductions at any time rather than only during a narrow annual window, or ending the practice of requiring public employers to collect union dues on behalf of unions.
Those changes represent a significant limit on the legislature’s ability to respond to future economic, legal, and fiscal challenges.
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW BEFORE VOTING ON PROP 3
- The right to collective bargaining is already law.
- Prop 3 isn’t about giving workers a new right.
It’s about removing one. Vermont workers can already form or join a union. That right is protected under the First Amendment right now. Prop 3 doesn’t change that. - Prop 3 permanently restricts worker freedom.
It empowers union leadership, not individual employees. Prop 3 would permanently ban laws that protect employees’ rights to keep their jobs without having to pay fees to a union. - Prop 3 could lock affordability out of reach.
Vermont already has one of the highest tax burdens in the nation. Prop 3 would tie the Legislature’s hands on collective bargaining over compensation and benefits — limiting future options to address rising taxpayer obligations, weakening taxpayers’ voice in state government, and making it easier for union leadership to negotiate contract demands that Vermont taxpayers may not be able to afford. - Prop 3 could start a legal fight that Vermont taxpayers can’t afford.
Prop 3’s language may create friction with federal law, meaning small employers could face years of legal uncertainty as courts and lawmakers work out what Prop 3 actually covers, leaving Vermont taxpayers to foot the bill as the state defends the amendment against legal challenges.
WHERE WOULD PROP 3 LEAVE VOTERS?
If union leadership can demand bargaining over virtually any subject (and threaten a strike until those demands are met) those terms get locked into contracts that the Legislature can no longer touch, no matter how circumstances change or what voters want. That leaves voters without a voice. The people they elect won’t have the power to make changes.
Know the facts. Read the full amendment text before you vote:
“That employees have a right to organize or join a labor organization for the purpose of collectively bargaining with their employer through an exclusive representative of their choosing for the purpose of negotiating wages, hours, and working conditions and to protect their economic welfare and safety in the workplace. Therefore, no law shall be adopted that interferes with, negates, or diminishes the right of employees to collectively bargain with respect to wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment and workplace safety, or that prohibits the application or execution of an agreement between an employer and a labor organization representing the employer’s employees that requires membership in the labor organization as a condition of employment.”
