UE Convention Resolutions
An Economy for All
The well-being of our nation and democracy depends on a radical readjustment of America's economic priorities. Government has a responsibility to restructure the economy to benefit all people, not just a wealthy few. It must protect us from damaging impacts of economic downturns, corporate crime, overwork, discrimination, and exploitation. Providing education, training, and employment, and a dignified and healthy retirement, is the responsibility of our government.
Working people are bearing the brunt of the recession. U.S. unemployment has reached double digits for the first time in a generation, with millions more uncounted because they have given up finding work or are incarcerated in America's prisons.
Millions of Americans have lost their homes to foreclosure. Rampant fraud and abuse has been perpetrated on working people by the financial industry. Regulatory agencies knew millions of people were being seduced into impossible to pay high-interest loans. While bankers and big investors made billions in profit, the Bush administration and Congress did nothing.
As unions decline, the disparity of wealth between the rich and working people becomes ever greater. Young workers are the first in our nation's history to experience a lower standard of living than their parents. Nearly one-third of U.S. workers are now "contingent," employed on a part-time, temporary, or contractual basis. Job cuts continue to fall hardest on those in full-time permanent jobs, as employers look to ditch these workers in favor of newer and lower paid replacements. Important fringe benefits have been decimated. More than 47 million people now lack health insurance. Many of the uninsured are employed, but are unable to afford the crushing cost of health insurance. One employer after another is eliminating defined-benefit pensions.
Billions of dollars in Bush-era tax cuts were lavished on big business and wealthy individuals. Combined with the recessionary drop in revenues, the resulting shortfalls at the federal and state levels have resulted in widespread fiscal crises. School budgets, higher education, healthcare, local law enforcement, and public transportation are all being slashed, adding to the dismantling of our communities.
The Obama administration holds the promise of a new direction in government. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (popularly known as the stimulus) has demonstrated this government's willingness to attempt to intervene in the economy in meaningful ways. The stimulus has helped keep state and local governments afloat, extended unemployment benefits, increased the budget for Medicaid, and is intended to promote investments in energy, research, healthcare and education.
It is not enough. Wall Street investors and corporate profits are experiencing a recovery, but workers are not. Our nation cannot afford yet another economic "recovery" that leaves working people behind. The stimulus must be targeted to reach working families, save and create jobs, keep families in their homes, restore American manufacturing, and restructure the economy so American workers can afford to buy goods and services they produce. Unfortunately, a large percentage of the stimulus was wasted on business tax cuts that do nothing to stimulate the economy.
While it is unrealistic to expect a system that benefits everyone equally tomorrow, a better and more equitable economy is desperately needed immediately.
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED THAT THIS 71st UE CONVENTION:
- Demands a second federal economic stimulus bill that will restore good jobs and a social safety net for working people and make long term investments in American infrastructure, including concerted development of "green energy" jobs, and provide emergency aid to states, local governments, schools and public colleges and universities whose budgets have been strangled by the economic crisis;
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Congratulates the members of UE Local 1110 for their successful plant occupation in 2008, which set a courageous example to the labor movement on how to fight back, for holding their employer, Republic Windows & Doors, along with Bank of America, accountable to working people, and for the actions they have taken to secure a stable economic future for themselves and their families;
- Calls on locals to engage in militant resistance to plant closings, layoffs, overwork, two-tier schemes, and other concessions, and to stand in solidarity with other unions engaged in similar struggles;
- Demands that Congress restore full employment to its rightful place at the top of federal priorities;
- Demands that Congress along with state and local governments reform the tax system by restoring higher tax rates for the wealthy and corporations and reducing the tax rate of working-class Americans
- Demands that Congress declare a moratorium on home foreclosures for working families;
- Demands that companies and states receiving federal stimulus dollars be required to respect the right of workers to organize;
- Calls on locals and regions to participate in the broad campaign for new federal tax and spending priorities by joining and assisting groups and coalitions such as the Citizens' Budget Campaign, and United for a Fair Economy;
- Calls on locals to participate in the campaign for "people first" economic development policy by joining community development organizations such as Good Jobs First, participating in activities like the Vermont People's Roundtable, and to interject a pro-worker perspective in local economic development initiatives;
- Calls on locals to support and participate in organizations which analyze the economy from a workers' perspective, such as the Economic Policy Institute and the Iowa Policy Project, and to share that information with elected leaders in order to counteract the rhetoric of anti-worker economists.