WHEREAS:
Since the 1980s, income and wealth have become increasingly concentrated among the richest Americans, with the top 10% now owning roughly 70% of the nation’s wealth. The top 1% now holds as much wealth as the bottom 90%, and the top 0.1% have more than doubled their income over the past decade, amassing more than $7.7 trillion. During the same period, executive compensation at the largest companies has soared while average workers have faced stagnant inflation-adjusted wages. Wage gains acquired during the Biden Administration have been erased by inflation. This has caused the middle class to shrink, and lower-wage workers have fallen further behind. Wealth is now concentrated in the hands of so few Americans that inequality is nearing levels not seen since before the Great Depression; and
WHEREAS:
Our nation’s policy structures, tax codes and regulatory frameworks move wealth upward instead of benefiting working people, widening rather than reducing racial and gender wealth gaps. Declining union membership — driven by the nation’s shift from a manufacturing economy to a service-based economy, along with changes to labor laws that make it harder to organize, secure first contracts and enforce labor law violations — has stripped workers of leverage and bargaining power at the table to the point that wage growth no longer keeps pace with rising productivity; and
WHEREAS:
Judicial decisions issued by the U.S. Supreme Court have sanctioned the use of unlimited dark money campaign contributions allowing billionaires and corporations to buy elections and exert pressure on politicians to pass favorable legislation like massive corporate and individual tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, and to award large taxpayer-funded government contracts to their companies and institutions, increasing their wealth and influence. At the same time, the use of gerrymandering, purging voters from the voter rolls and imposing voting restrictions have decreased the ability of working people to influence the outcome of elections or elect politicians that favor a pro-worker agenda; and
WHEREAS:
Billionaires now own major news and media outlets to control the flow of information to the American people and use misinformation to influence public opinion in an effort to maintain their wealth and influence; and
WHEREAS:
The shift of billions of dollars in resources every year to corporations and wealthy Americans reduces our ability to fund vital public services for our communities and fully staff the public sector workforce needed to do the work, and to provide affordable health care, affordable housing, safe workplaces, a good quality public education and a secure retirement for all Americans.
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED:
That AFSCME and its affiliates reaffirm their commitment to fighting for an economy that works for working people by:
- Demanding a fair tax system at all levels of government and an end to tax cuts for corporations and the wealthiest Americans at the expense of working families and the funding of vital public services;
- Working to end gerrymandering by establishing uniform national rules that ban partisan gerrymandering and establish fair processes for congressional redistricting; and creating non-partisan citizens commissions in every state to draw state electoral maps and to re-establish free and fair elections by eliminating barriers to voting;
- Requiring companies that obtain local tax abatements and government contracts to provide good paying union jobs and hold them accountable;
- Fighting against any expansion of voucher schools;
- Vigorously opposing and working to defeat any cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act;
- Working to prohibit non-compete agreements, just-in-time scheduling and wage theft that keep low-wage workers undercompensated and limit their ability to advance;
- Bargaining to extend benefits to part-time workers;
- Working to increase child care subsidies that give working families access to affordable child care;
- Lobbying to expand the Earned Income Tax Credit;
- Working for passage of the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act, Faster Labor Contracts Act and the PRO Act;
- Lobbying for passage of the Health Over Wealth Act and the Stop Wall Street Looting Act to limit abuses by private equity firms; and
- Repealing “right-to-work” laws that make it harder to form and sustain unions.
SUBMITTED BY:
R. Sean Grayson, President and Delegate
David Kovacs, Recording Secretary
AFSCME Council 8
Ohio