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Home , Prevailing wage, Wage theft

Resolution 10 RAISING IS THE ANSWER

There is something fundamentally wrong The failure of this low- strategy shows that we with the U.S. economy. More than four years after the no longer can rely on household borrowing, real end of the Great Recession, economic growth is still estate bubbles, tech bubbles or stock bubbles to fuel weak and is still higher than its peak economic growth. We must rely instead on higher in the previous recession. The heart of the problem is wages to restore middle-class buying power and the stagnation of wages and the lack of middle-class create healthy domestic markets for U.S. businesses. buying power. The solution is to replace the failed Higher wages are not a luxury that can be postponed low-wage economic strategy of the past 30 years until the crisis has receded; they are the only way out with a high-wage strategy for shared prosperity. of the crisis and the basis for sustainable growth.

The low-wage economic strategy of the past 30 years A high-wage strategy for shared prosperity must consisted of at least five elements: (1) a sustained war include: (1) restoring workers’ ability to bargain against workers’ freedom to bargain collectively; (2) a collectively; (2) strengthening labor standards and sustained attack on labor standards and employment protections for all workers; (3) making protections for all workers; (3) the abandonment of the central objective of U.S. fiscal full employment as a central objective of U.S. economic and monetary policy; (4) forging a new model of policy and declining investment in infrastructure; engagement with the global economy so that we (4) the relocation of U.S. manufacturing production make things in America again and eliminate the U.S. to other countries, accompanied by chronic U.S. trade trade deficit; and (5) shrinking our bloated financial deficits; and (5) Wall Street’s takeover of the real sector and making it serve the real economy. economy. The AFL-CIO resolves to construct and implement The upshot of this low-wage economic strategy a Raising Wages Campaign, including the following was that wage growth for most workers became efforts at the federal, state and local levels to raise delinked from productivity growth in the late 1970s. wages and labor standards for every worker in The real median income of working-age families fell America and make every a good job. from 2000 to 2007 and has continued falling since the Great Recession. The wage crisis has had an Federal Legislation especially harmful impact on people of color and their communities. • Freedom to Form a Union. We will support legislation to restore workers’ ability to form or join The failure of this low-wage strategy was responsible a union (Committee 1). for the weakness of the U.S. economy before the Great Recession, which was temporarily papered • Comprehensive Immigration Reform. To support over by a bubble in real estate prices. Today the labor standards for everyone who works in America, U.S. economy is still struggling to recover from the we will support legislation to provide a path to collapse of the real estate bubble. citizenship and meaningful labor protections (Committee 3).

20 AFL-CIO CONVENTION 2013 • ADOPTed Resolutions and Constitutional Amendments • Immigrant Workers. We will work to improve wages Federal Regulation and Enforcement and standards in all foreign temporary worker programs, including the H-1B, H-2A and H-2B visa programs. • and for Home Care Workers. We will work for a regulation to clarify that wage • Raise and Index the Minimum Wage. We support and hour protections apply to home care workers. legislation to increase the minimum wage to $10.10 and to ensure it rises annually, and to increase the • for Federal Contract Workers. We will minimum wage for tipped workers to 70% of the urge the administration to issue an executive order regular minimum wage. requiring federal contractors and subcontractors to pay a living wage. • Employee Misclassification. We will support legislation (“Fair Playing Field Act”) to combat • Index Overtime Eligibility to Inflation. We will work the misclassification of employees as independent for a regulation to update and index the $455/week contractors, which undermines labor standards. threshold for overtime exceptions.

• . We will support • Prevailing Wage. To keep the government from legislation (“Paycheck Fairness Act”) to protect undermining labor standards, we will work to improve workers against gender discrimination. the process for determining prevailing wages under the Davis-Bacon and Service Contract Acts. • Protect Overtime for Private-Sector Workers. We will oppose legislation (“Comp Time”) that • Project Labor Agreements. We will work to excuses some employers from the obligation to promote and consistently apply project labor pay a cash premium for overtime work. agreements (PLAs) to support labor standards on publicly funded construction projects. • Protect Overtime for Computer Professionals. We will oppose legislation (“Computer Professionals • Transit Workers. We will work to maintain Section Update Act”) that strips overtime protection from 13(c) protections for public transportation workers, computer programmers, software engineers and which ensure collective bargaining rights and protect other tech employees. wages, pensions and other conditions of employment.

• Compensation for Federal Employees. We will • Railroad Workers. We will work to preserve and oppose pay cuts and benefit cuts for federal enforce existing labor protections for freight and employees, which undermine labor standards, and passenger railroad workers, which uphold collective support a living wage for federal employees. bargaining, wages, benefits and other worker rights.

• Paid Sick Days. We will support legislation (“Healthy • Wage Theft. We will work toward a federal regulation Families Act”) to allow workers to earn up to seven to require employers to provide employees with paid sick days per year. information about hours worked and wages earned.

• Family and Medical Leave. We will support State and Local Legislation and legislation to apply the Family and Medical Leave Activity Act (FMLA) to smaller businesses and to provide for paid leave through general revenues. • Non-Pre-emption of Local Labor Standards. We will oppose state legislation that prevents counties • Fair Wages for Workers with Disabilities. We will and municipalities from setting labor standards support legislation (“Fair Wages for Workers with higher than state standards. Disabilities Act”) to stop allowing employers to pay disabled workers a sub-minimum wage.

AFL-CIO CONVENTION 2013 • ADOPTED Resolutions and Constitutional Amendments 21 • “Right to Work.” We will oppose “right to work” • Domestic Workers. We will support legislation to legislation, which lowers labor standards for all guarantee minimum wage, overtime and other labor workers. protections for domestic workers.

• Minimum Wage. We will support legislation to • Accountable Development. We will support increase and index the minimum wage, and increase legislation to require public contractors and recipients the minimum for tipped employees. of state and local subsidies to create good in the that meet wage and benefit standards. • Prevailing Wage. We will support legislation to keep publicly funded projects from undermining • Community Benefits Agreements. We will work labor standards. with unions in various sectors, municipalities and community partners to negotiate agreements • Employee Misclassification. We will support with developers and contractors to support labor legislation to combat the misclassification of standards, provide benefits to the community and employees as independent contractors. utilize union programs.

• Union Organizing Campaigns. We will support • Collective Bargaining Rights. We will support efforts of workers to bargain collectively. legislation to extend bargaining rights to workers who do not have them and oppose legislation that • Wage Theft. We will support legislation and impairs existing rights. ordinances to keep employers from underpaying or failing to pay their employees. • Fair Share Revenue. We will support legislation to raise tax revenue from the wealthy to avoid loss of • Outsourcing. We will oppose outsourcing proposals vital public services. that wrongly put public services in the hands of for-profit companies, weakening accountability and • Unemployment . We will support state transparency. legislation to address the financial crisis of the UI system and oppose proposals to reduce benefit • Compensation for Public Service Employees. weeks or amounts. We will oppose pay cuts and benefit cuts for public service employees, which undermine labor • Living Wage. We will support ordinances to standards. establish living wage standards.

• Farmworkers. We will support legislation to • Paid Sick Days. We will support earned sick day guarantee overtime, collective bargaining rights and ordinances and legislation. other employment protections to farmworkers.

22 AFL-CIO CONVENTION 2013 • ADOPTed Resolutions and Constitutional Amendments