Vermont's labor landscape shifted dramatically Thursday as the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees won a vote to represent the state's newest and largest collective bargaining unit.

By a decisive margin of 1412 to 566, Vermont's newly empowered home-care workers voted to be represented by the national labor union. The collective bargaining unit was authorized by the legislature last winter and will include roughly 7000 home health workers who provide care for the elderly and disabled.

While the outcome was significant, Thursday's vote tally was hardly a surprise. AFSCME spent months battling the Service Employees International Union for the right to organize the new bargaining unit, but the latter group dropped out in July after failing to gain traction. Mailed-in ballots counted by the Vermont Labor Relations Board Thursday morning included just two options: yes to AFSCME or no.

Parents and students from all over Chittenden County packed the Essex High School cafeteria last night to respond to a proposal that would permanently change the school calendar. Members of the Champlain Valley Superintendent's Association were surrounded, literally. When their efforts to keep the meeting orderly — by getting attendees to write down their reactions on pieces of paper — failed, facilitators passed around mics instead.

The first in a series of four forums this month stayed mostly civil, but the parents who spoke up were largely against the idea of shortening the traditional summer vacation by two weeks to create three "intercessions" during the academic year. One of the goals of Calendar 2.0, which has been proposed for schools in Chittenden, Franklin and Grand Isle counties, is to increase the number of opportunities to identify and help struggling students. 

The idea is that the intercessions would allow students who fall behind in classes to catch up, while giving other students a chance to pursue internships and enrichment opportunities. 

It's a big news week in Vermont with the long-awaited launch of the state's health care exchange. We've got stories about that and more in this week's Seven Days.

• Republican political operative Darcie Johnston is devoted to stopping health care reform in Vermont. How's it going?
• No dancing in Burlington restaurants? A puritanical "rule" in the Queen City could be overhauled soon.
• In this week's Fair Game: Vermont pols rail against the federal shutdown, Vermont Health Connect launches, Leahy wines and dines some big-bucks donors and the Free Press sells its HQ.
• In the cover story, Paula Routly profiles Captain Richard Phillips, the Underhill merchant mariner whose ordeal with Somali pirates is the subject of a new Tom Hanks film, Captain Phillips. The real captain is back in the same waters where he was taken hostage in 2009.

Read these stories and more in print, online or on our iOS app.

Cover photo of Captain Phillips by Oliver Parini

Back from an eight-day trip to Asia to court foreign investors, Gov. Peter Shumlin and Jay Peak Resort president Bill Stenger say the mission was a resounding success.

"I'm not prone to hyperbole on this kind of stuff, but it did exceed what I had hoped for," Stenger says. "I was confident it was going to be a good trip, but it turned out even better than I thought."

The delegation, which included Shumlin, Secretary of Commerce Lawrence Miller and an Agency of Commerce employee, met with more than 500 potential investors in four Chinese and Vietnamese cities, Stenger says.

He believes those meetings could result in $50 million worth of investment for Stenger's various Northeast Kingdom development projects. Those include expansions at Jay Peak and Burke Mountain, a biotechnology facility in Newport and other downtown redevelopment projects on Lake Memphremagog.

Mark Larson, commissioner of the Department of Vermont Health Access (DVHA), said Monday afternoon that, despite 11th-hour claims to the contrary, Vermont Health Connect is "prepared to go live tomorrow." That's when Vermont officially launches its new online health insurance exchange, the first step in the state's implementation of the federally mandated Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka "Obamacare."

Larson took time out of what is arguably his most stressful day of the year to respond to criticisms about the new online exchange leveled by Republican Randy Brock. On Sunday, the former Vermont auditor, state senator and GOP gubernatorial candidate published a scathing editorial on VT Digger likening Vermont Health Connect to The Wizard of Oz, all "smoke and mirrors, and behind the curtain there is no Wizard — there is only Peter Shumlin."

"The fact of the matter is this: The system doesn’t work," Brock charged.

Not so, according to Larson.

"I think the recent op-ed is unfortunate in that it tries to create concern about our ability to successfully launch Vermont Health Connect," Larson told Seven Days this afternoon. Contrary to Brock's claims, he said, Vermonters will still be able to go online, compare health insurance plans, sign up for an account and then select a plan that works for them. If Vermonters get that far in October, he added, they’ll be invoiced come November and be able to pay either electronically or by check.

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When Vermont's new health insurance exchange goes live Tuesday morning, its chief opponents plan to flood the state with automated phone calls criticizing it.

Darcie Johnston, the founder of Vermonters for Health Care Freedom, says her organization plans to robo-call 30,000 households with a message warning Vermonters that, thanks to Gov. Peter Shumlin, they "could be left uninsured in just three months."

"Why?" the message continues. "Gov. Shumlin got the legislature to require that individuals and small employers must buy health insurance only through an online exchange called Vermont Health Connect — and the exchange may not be ready in time."

The message, which Johnston says will cost $800 to deploy, provides recipients the option to "press 1 now" to be connected with the governor — or at least the poor, beleaguered staffers answering his phones on the fifth floor of the Pavilion State Office Building. A separate message, which will be left on the voicemail systems of those who don't pick up, will helpfully provide the gov's number. 

The Vermont Sail Freight Project's 39-and-a-half-foot sail barge, the Ceres, completed its maiden voyage today, gliding into Burlington Bay around 4:30 this afternoon; it left Vergennes shortly after 10 this morning. A lone trumpeter played classic tunes from a dock at the Burlington Boathouse as the 19th century-style, wind-powered craft approached.

As Seven Days reported in April, Erik Andrus, a Ferrisburg farmer and baker, conceived of Project as a carbon-neutral way to shuttle food grown and produced in the Champlain Valley to spots around the northeast.

Roughly 30 people were on hand to celebrate the vessel's arrival — including fans of the project, tourists basking in the sun, and a burly cyclist from Bike Recycle Vermont with a small trailer in tow. After a small crew unloaded the craft's cargo of grain and garlic, the cyclists delivered the produce to Great Harvest Bread Company and City Market.

Not only was today the maiden voyage for the project's barge — built with support from the Willowell Foundation and named for the Roman goddess of agriculture — it was also practice for a trip the crew will be making to New York City next month. Brian Goblick, who built parts of the Ceres and has been handling logistics for the project, explained they will be stopping at ports along the Hudson Valley to drop off goods and hold dockside events and demonstrations.

The Ceres arrives in Burlington. With his sons, Erik Andrus prepares to disembark. Photos courtesy of Charles Eichacker. 

Grab your favorite pumpkin-flavored coffee drink — that little chill in the morning means fall is here, and the first Seven Days of the season hit the streets today. Here's what you'll find for news and politics this week:

• In Fair Game, Paul Heintz reports that a program to encourage charitable giving by state employees is funding two anti-gay organizations classified as "hate groups" by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Plus, more staff changes at Vermont Public Radio, the Rutland Herald and here at Seven Days.
• A new methadone clinic to help treat drug addicts is now open in South Burlington, despite the ongoing opposition of some neighbors. Ken Picard talks to two patients.
• Vermont cops and docs are on the lookout for "molly," a powdered form of ecstasy. Kids these days.
• In archaeology news, the Abenaki may not have been the only early inhabitants of Vermont.

Pick up this week's issue in print, online or on the app.

This week's cover image by the late Stephen Huneck is courtesy of the Stephen Huneck Gallery. See this week's cover story about the future of Dog Mountain.

On Tuesday, Vermont Attorney General Bill Sorrell signed onto a letter sent by 38 other attorneys general around the country who are calling on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to regulate electronic cigarettes, or "e-cigarettes," as tobacco products under the federal Tobacco Control Act.

The battery-powered devices deliver a vaporized hit of nicotine that many smokers describe as similar in taste and feel to tobacco cigarettes, without the smoke, odor or — their manufacturers claim — deadly chemicals. Many longtime smokers credit e-cigarettes for helping them reduce or even eliminate their conventional tobacco habit entirely.

However, public health officials have expressed growing alarm in recent years about the rise of e-cigarette use among children and teenagers. Unlike traditional cigarettes, e-cigs are not currently regulated as tobacco products in the United States, thus allowing their sale to minors.

As Sorrell noted in his Tuesday press release, the U.S. Surgeon General has warned that the nicotine in e-cigarettes is still highly addictive and has immediate biochemical effects on the brain and body, and can be toxic in high doses. Sorrell also noted that the lack of regulation of e-cigarettes, both at the state and federal level, "puts youth at risk of developing a lifelong addiction to a potentially dangerous product that could also act as a gateway to using other tobacco products."

Just moments after the Burlington City Council voted on a new redistricting plan last night, its members dove headfirst into an even thornier issue: the city's livable wage ordinance.

For the last several months, the council’s three-member ordinance committee has been consulting with employers, city agencies, nonprofit organizations and the public to hammer out a set of amendments to a city law originally passed in 2001, ordinance committee chair Chip Mason (D-Ward 5) explained last night.

As envisioned, the ordinance was meant to guarantee a livable wage to employees of the city or any company with which it contracts. Right now, Burlington defines “livable” as $13.94 an hour for companies that offer health insurance and $15.83 for those that don't.