Workers Emergency Recovery Campaign

On February 4, 2009, the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) House of Representatives passed the following motion:

UTLA endorses the Workers Emergency Recovery Campaign 10-point platform below; and,

UTLA will write its Congressional delegation and Secretary of Labor designate Hilda Solis of this position, urging their support, and

UTLA will introduce a similar resolution at the LA County Federation of Labor.

WERC 10-Point Platform

1. Put a halt to the Wall Street bailout plan. Not one more penny should be earmarked to bail out the bankers and speculators. It’s time to bail out working people.
2. Enact a moratorium on all home foreclosures, utility shut-offs, evictions and rent hikes. Nationalize the mortgage industry, including Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
3. Enact H.R. 676 – the universal, single-payer healthcare plan. Take the private insurance companies out of the healthcare equation. Guarantee fully funded pensions for retirees, along with healthcare and other benefits.
4. Enact the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) so that every worker can have union representation.
5. Stop the layoffs in auto and other industries across the country. Nationalize the Big 3 automakers. Re-tool the auto industry to build rapid mass transit, solar, and wind systems.
6. Stop the scapegoating of immigrant workers. Stop the ICE raids and deportations.
7. End all funding for the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and bring our troops home now. The war expenditures in these countries alone are estimated at $3 trillion. Redirect all war funding to meet human needs.
8. Enact a massive national reconstruction public works program (minimum expenditure needed of $1 trillion) to rebuild the nation’s schools, hospitals and crumbling infrastructure and to put millions of people back to work at a union-scale wage. Provide all necessary funding for a genuine Reconstruction program in the Gulf Coast; enact the Gulf Coast Civic Works Act (H.R. 4048).
9. Defend and expand the rights and economic security of those unable to work. Grant living-wage  benefits to single parents, disabled, seniors, and the unemployed. End the arbitrary, punitive time limits, sanctions, denial of education, and forced unwaged workfare in the TANF welfare program.
10. Tax the corporations and the rich – not working people – to finance a workers’ recovery plan. The rich currently enjoy historically high levels of wealth while being taxed at bargain-basement rates. Implement a retroactive tax on windfall revenue on the oil-energy industry, return capital income taxation to 1981 levels, and repatriate the $2 trillion from the offshore tax havens.

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