WHEREAS:
The open-ended federal bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the privately-owned, publicly-subsidized corporations which finance three quarters of new mortgages for family homes, potentially increases our national debt by 60 percent, adding Fannie’s and Freddie’s combined liabilities of $5.3 trillion to the existing debt of $9.2 trillion; and
WHEREAS:
This represents a massive U-turn by the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve, demonstrating, like the recent Bear Stearns bailout, that the free market policies of the past three decades have totally failed. As always, it is working class taxpayers who will be forced to pay the bill, subsidizing the profits and canceling out the losses of big business; and
WHEREAS:
The maintenance of a secondary market for home mortgages is a public good which has been undermined by the privatization of the federal national mortgage association; and
WHEREAS:
Wealth is created, not by gambling and speculation in the financial markets, nor in the executive suites of overpaid CEOs, but only by the labor of people who do actual work, regardless of whether this is done in the public or private sectors; and
WHEREAS:
The workers, who create that wealth, are facing a crisis of inflation in food, fuel and other essentials but, at the same time, a crisis of deflation in the value of our homes, with 2 million foreclosures last year and another 2.5 million expected this year. At the same time, corporations are laying off thousands of workers and cutting pay and benefits for those who are still employed.
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED:
That this union demand the following program from our elected officials:
- No handouts to the banks and corporations who are responsible for creating this chaos. When businesses have to be “rescued” in order to save workers’ livelihoods, this should be done by taking them into public ownership under democratic control.
- A moratorium on home foreclosures. Quality housing for all, including grants to upgrade existing homes, communities and public transportation, rather than feeding the profits of developers through suburban sprawl.
- A massive program of public works, administered with democratic control at a local level, with community and union involvement. This should create jobs at union rates of pay for all those who are out of work or under-employed. It should rebuild the infrastructure, building and renovating schools, hospitals, transportation, sanitation and workplaces so that everyone has access to a living wage and the economy can be rebuilt.
SUBMITTED BY: Stephen Edwards, President and Delegate
Angie Whitfield, Delegate
Bunnie Johnson, Delegate
Yvohnne Harkins, Delegate
AFSCME Local 2858, Council 31
Illinois