Working people in all their great variety from factory and transportation workers to nurses and teachers, from miners and oil workers to professors and scientists form the backbone of this country. Workers should be able to live a decent life without exhausting themselves and destroying their family life.
- Wealth in our society should not be skewed in favor of some and against others. We need to increase the power of labor unions because dynamic unions accelerate the redistribution of wealth and lead to greater fairness.
- Workers in the United States should in general work fewer hours, receive higher pay, a real living wage, and have healthier and safer working conditions.
- We need to insure that all workers after one year of employment receive a four-week vacation every year. Some countries in Europe have had this for decades.
- Workers should have adequate paternity/maternity leave at full-pay.
- The government and employers should provide child care for all workers with children.
- Private pension plans should be eliminated and all workers ensured real social security, that is a government pension which makes possible retirement with dignity, together with free medical care, recreation facilities, and life-long learning programs.
- When workers become unemployed, they should still be guaranteed an income. A guaranteed annual income, an idea put forward by the Democrats in the 1940s and again in the 1960s and won by the United Auto Workers for its members should be a national goal.
