THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENT IN TODAY'S SOCIETY

WHEREAS, the welfare of our democracy as a whole is a public responsibility and there are crucial, common areas that cannot be governed by private markets. These areas include sustaining political and social cohesion, regulatory controls, justice, equality, a safety net and fair taxation. Some programs that fall under these broad areas are education, environment, public safety, health care, housing, taking care of the elderly and children, unemployment, crumbling roads and bridges, crime, pollution, drug abuse and discrimination. These areas require strong public sector leadership and resources; and

WHEREAS, the only way these programs can be run effectively and we can genuinely attain good government is if they are adequately funded and if the unionized public workforce has a say in finding solutions to better run the programs through engaging in a labor-management partnership where workers have an equal voice with management; and

WHEREAS, many politicians are pursuing a deliberate policy¾ known as "devolution"¾ to reduce public financial commitments to domestic, nondefense programs and to shift more responsibility to fund the safety net to state and local governments, and in other cases to shift public responsibilities to either individuals or private corporations; and

WHEREAS, recent court rulings at the federal and state levels have bolstered the notion that government workers carry out their functions to serve the public good and are accountable to all citizens while private business functions for profit; and

WHEREAS, government, by selling itself to private enterprise, is destroying the integrity of public employment and the quality of public service; and

WHEREAS, public employers, in an effort to cut costs, are turning to the use of firms that employ temporary and casual workers in order to achieve false cost savings when bidding for public contracts; and

WHEREAS, when measuring the purported savings achieved by the practice of contracting out, we must also consider the "cost" of declining quality of work, of lost accountability, of reduced investment in people, of long-term public expenses that result from service reduction, of increased corruption, of increased sex and race discrimination and of further isolating the disadvantaged; and

WHEREAS, excellent public services are vital to the public good and to the quality of community life, the key to excellent public services is meaningful citizen and public worker involvement in how the services are delivered:

RESOLVED, that the AFT continue to oppose all policies that threaten the integrity of public employment and the provision of quality services, including privatization, contracting out, workfare and prison labor and that we put forth the alternative of creating a high-performance workplace where labor and management resolve problems as equals through a labor-management partnership; and

RESOLVED, that the AFT condemn the practice of management-dominated work teams or employee involvement schemes in unorganized workplaces. True employee involvement to improve the workplace and work practices can only be achieved through a joint union- management effort where the union is recognized and respected as an institution and collective bargaining is the basis for the relationship between management and the workforce; and

RESOLVED, that the AFT encourage and participate in efforts to improve the efficiency and quality of public services through the restructuring of service delivery through labor-management partnerships where appropriate and members shall retain their collective bargaining rights.