Resolution No. 30: All In on Balancing the Scales

WHEREAS, we’ve witnessed more than four decades of increasing inequality, a rigged economy in which the rich get richer, but real wages for workers remain largely stagnant despite steadily rising productivity; and

WHEREAS, the very wealthy have more than doubled their net-worth in the past decade, lining their pockets with an additional $7.7 trillion, while ordinary people can barely afford basic necessities and some struggle for regular meals, access to health care and housing. Nearly 37 percent of Americans cannot afford an unexpected expense over $400; and

WHEREAS, the greedy corporations used the inflation caused by the Covid-19 pandemic as cover to further raise prices, leveraging a global catastrophe to achieve greater and greater profits out of working families; and

WHEREAS, unions provide a clear, undisputed economic advantage, with unionized workers earning on average 20 percent more than their non-union counterparts with similar responsibilities, education and experience, as well as having greater access to employer-sponsored health care, retirement security, safer workplaces and a voice on the job; and

WHEREAS, unions have successfully lobbied for policies that promote widespread prosperity like a robust National Labor Relations Board intent on protecting workers’ rights, significant investments to rebuild domestic manufacturing and worker-centered trade that both protects our jobs and increases labor standards around the globe; and

WHEREAS, this widening gulf between working families and the ultra-wealthy goes hand-in-hand with attacks on unions and other efforts to restore balance to the economy; and

WHEREAS, we commit to defending the historic gains workers won during the 117^th Congress with the passage of the American Rescue Plan (2021), the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (2021), the Inflation Reduction Act (2022) and the CHIPS and Science Act (2022), policies that saved the pensions of 120,000 USW retirees and members, lowered prescription drug prices for seniors, created and maintained U.S. jobs, helped revitalize domestic manufacturing and established strong industrial policy; and

WHEREAS, rising income inequality and deindustrialization is linked to an erosion of democracy as increasing polarization and circulation of misinformation undermine faith in needed institutions like the free press, an independent judiciary and organized labor; and

WHEREAS, without a change in course our democratic nation faces a situation where the country is controlled by a few extremely wealthy individuals, commonly known as an oligarchy, who use their influence to force through policies that enable the retention of their massive wealth at the expense of workers; and

WHEREAS, one of the most obvious ways the extremely rich are pursuing their agenda is through a regressive tax structure intended to provide cuts for ultra-wealthy individuals and powerful corporations while providing little or no relief for everyday Americans and Canadians; and

WHEREAS, a feature of this tax reform is to use the huge budget deficit it creates as a guise to cut funding for programs on which working families depend like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid; and

WHEREAS, we are seeing in Elon Musk, whose $390 billion in net worth is more than 2.2 million times that of the average American family and whose hostility to unions and disregard for workers’ safety is well-documented, the real-time dangers of giving an unelected, unconfirmed layperson unfettered access to our government; and

WHEREAS, other billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg have used their massive wealth to buy newspapers, limit alternative news voices on social media, and use their paid access to elected officials and political influence even as they’ve fought their own workers as they exercise their federal right to form a union; and

WHEREAS, as billionaires upend the federal workforce, they’re deliberately sowing chaos so we will not notice the details of their anti-worker agenda and how they threaten the agencies on which workers rely to uphold their rights like the National Labor Relations Board, the Mine Safety and Health Administration, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration; and

WHEREAS, these attacks directly impact our ability to collectively bargain strong contracts, stacking the deck in favor of greedy corporations that are willing to break the law as they seek to deny workers the fair pay and benefits they deserve; and

WHEREAS, rather than fixing the problems with our economy and legitimately identifying and eliminating waste, fraud and abuse, Musk and the rest of the current Administration are giving lip service to efficiency and attacks on policies that benefit every and all Americans as cover to dismantle systems that workers need, including firing civil servants tasked with protecting workers and destroying health and safety guidance on a wide range of industries, from health care to veterans benefits; and

WHEREAS, billionaires and their cronies seek to turn us against each other on the basis of age, race, gender, sexual identity and other superficial distinctions so that we will not turn our collective force against them to demand our fair share of economic gains; and

WHEREAS, we’re also seeing these attacks play out at the state level, with anti-worker legislation passed or under consideration in a wide range of states from Utah to New Hampshire; and

WHEREAS, we understand that as union members we have a responsibility to serve on the front lines in the fight for economic justice.

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that:

• (1) Our union is all in on building an economy that serves everyone, not just the wealthy few.
• (2) We will use our collective strength not only to bargain strong contracts and organize new members into our union, but to hold all our elected officials, regardless of their political affiliation, accountable to our needs.
• (3) We will fight for a tax system that is fair and balanced, so that greedy corporations and parasite billionaires pay their share, just like the rest of us.
• (4) We will hold the line when it comes to retirement security and affordable health care, especially when it comes to protecting programs like Social Security and Medicare into which we have all paid. We will advocate for fair trade, safe workplaces and an industrial policy that grows the middle class rather than feeds off of it.
• (5) We will combat disinformation in all its forms, refusing to allow the billionaire class to hoard wealth and power under the cover of darkness.
• (6) We will reject the line of reasoning that suggests that working families must suffer for the economy to be made whole. We power our economy, and we deserve to share in the profits our labor creates.
• (7) We will take control back from the billionaire class who bought their way into our halls of government, rigging our economy in their favor. We will demonstrate once again that the many, working together, will always be more powerful than the self-interested few.