******discussion draft 12/17/09******

Mission Statement
We are an alliance between public sector workers and the wider community. We stand in solidarity with the working class to
fight to defend and expand public services.
Stop the cuts and layoffs! Hire more frontline workers, not more managers and executives.
Fund our public needs! not prisons, wars and Wall Street ‘bailouts’
Not on our backs! Halt increased taxes, fees and fines aimed at working people.

What we are for

Public services are human rights worth fighting for
We seek to organize working people to defend and extend public institutions such as schools, parks, museums, libraries
and social services like health care, public aid, public housing, and public transportation. These services empower us and
improve all our lives. The public commons help protect the environment we live and work in. Yet public resources do not
and should not make a profit- they are long-term social investments in safeguarding and enriching human culture. We
organize to defend these public services and the workers who provide them.
Public sector that is really public
Selling our public commons to for-profit companies (privatization) is not the answer. Neither is putting more resources into
bureaucratic machines run from the top-down by overpaid managers and executives. Instead, front-line workers must have
the power to directly respond to the changing needs of the community they serve. The speed and intensity of work must be
decreased by hiring more workers to do the actual work. Workers must be allowed to spend part of their (paid) time
organizing and planning their work alongside their coworkers and the community. Only the people who actually do the work
can ensure safety, quality and human decency comes first.
Massive public works and jobs program
Millions are being thrown out of work, yet so much work needs to be done! From schools to bridges to levees to trains and
buses, public infrastructure is in dangerous need of repair and expansion. Our youth are in and out of gangs and prisons,
killing each other. We refuse to keep covering over the surface of these problems with more cops and prisons that make
things worse. Youth and unemployed people need the opportunity to do meaningful work directly helping our communities.
We call for a massive public works program (schools, parks, affordable housing, health-care, public transit, etc.) focusing on
access to the communities that need it most. Every single new job must be a union job. A public works program must begin
to establish a union-scale job as the minimum standard for work. It must be full-time work with comprehensive health-care,
child-care, paid vacation and a real pension. Hold the line: no work should be done below this standard!
Workers are the Key
All wealth is produced by working people. Workers can shut down industries and profits. This power will be listened to while
our cries and appeals to fairness have not. While huge financial institutions and the super-wealthy are ‘bailed out,’ we will
continue to be ignored until we back up our social demands with the power of organized workers. We are part of a renewed
labor movement that doesn’t just try to hold on to wages and jobs, but actively organizes workers to struggle for social
needs.
Towards a workers’ party
We need a working class voice in the media and in politics. We need a national pole of attraction to organize solidarity for
workers from city to city. Based on rank-and-file direct democracy and recallable leadership, we actively promote the
formation of a workers’ political party in the United States.
Unity in struggle
These goals require struggle. We will have to unite the working class –with all of our differences- towards these goals.
Workers, youth, unemployed and retired people are welcome to link arms with us, regardless of race, sex, sexual
orientation, national origin or ‘legal’ documentation.