WHEREAS:

            The Occupy Wall Street movement and its “We Are The 99 Percent” campaign have brought long overdue attention to the problem of income and wealth inequality in America; and

WHEREAS:

            The divide in incomes and in wealth between the rich and poor in America has reached levels not seen since before the Great Depression, with the top 1 percent of households taking in more than 15 percent of the nation’s total income today, compared to just over 6 percent in the 1970s. This makes the United States a more unequal society than nearly all other industrialized democracies around the world, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The distribution of wealth is even more unequal, with the top 1 percent owning 37 percent of net wealth, and the top 20 percent owning 87 percent; and

WHEREAS:

            The income gap continues to grow, with the richest 1 percent of households taking 93 percent of the income gains in the first year of recovery from the Great Recession, while the bottom 99 percent have to share what is left; and

WHEREAS:

            Growing inequality in incomes and wealth are not forces of nature.  They are the direct result of political and policy choices that have weakened labor unions, created a global race to the bottom as companies outsource good jobs, reduced the progressivity of taxes, diluted the value of the minimum wage and allowed companies to shirk obligations for their workers’ benefits; and

WHEREAS:

            These choices led to a hollowing out of the manufacturing sector, a decimation of private sector unions that for decades were the engine that produced the American middle class and an explosion in the growth of the financial sector. By 2008, the manufacturing sector had shrunk to half the size it was in 1960, while the financial sector had doubled in size and comprised 40 percent of the economy; and

WHEREAS:

            The financial sector abandoned its essential function of investing in the economy and creating jobs; Wall Street firms instead reaped profits by stripping businesses of their assets and discarding their workers, and creating incomprehensible and unsustainable financial instruments; and 

WHEREAS:

            These financial instruments created the illusion of stability and growth through a real estate bubble that created artificial and temporary wealth for many working families and unscrupulous credit practices that put individuals and our entire economy at great risk; and

WHEREAS:

            Wealth and income inequality make it more difficult for working people to achieve a decent standard of living for themselves, create opportunities for their children and prepare for a secure retirement.   Inequality and a lack of opportunity make it more difficult to educate and train our young people for the future.  Inequality distorts the political process to serve the interests of a wealthy few. More than simply being unfair, this massive gulf between the rich and poor is, in fact, incompatible with democracy; and

WHEREAS:

            Massive inequality is also bad for the economy. Since the early 1980’s our economy has grown considerably slower than it had in the postwar period and, even in the expansion of the early 2000’s, real income for the middle class declined.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED:

            That AFSCME stands with the Occupy Wall Street movement and the 99 percent to condemn the large and growing inequalities in income and wealth in the United States as destructive to the health of our economy, our society and our democracy; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED:

            That one way to address inequality is to focus less on the profitability of corporations that maintain headquarters in the U.S. and ship jobs overseas, and more on the prosperity and well-being of the people who work hard and are barely getting by; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED:

            That we fight to restore our manufacturing sector and control the financial sector so that it once again serves the American economy and so that tangible products, and not just toxic assets, are Made in America; and 

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED:

            That AFSCME supports higher taxes on the wealthy, profitable corporations and Wall Street, all of whom have benefitted the most from our misguided economic policies, with the revenues invested in creating good jobs in America; and 

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED:

            That AFSCME will continue to fight for policies that promote a fairer distribution of income and wealth in America, including stronger labor unions and workplace rights.  We will fight for livable wages; more secure benefits; fairer trade policies and a stronger public sector; and

BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED:

            That the economic policies that led to the Great Recession have been catastrophic failures. We must learn from these mistakes and build the economy of the future on the broad base of a solid middle class.