ACORN People's Platform


The People's Platform was conceived at ACORN's 1978 Memphis Convention and ratified at the 1979 St. Louis Convention. In 1990, in celebration of ACORN's twentieth anniversary, ACORN members around the country met in order to revise and update the platform. The resulting document was approved by the Executive Committee of the Association board and ratified by acclamation at the 1990 Chicago Convention.

Preamble

We stand for a People's Platform, as old as our country, and as young as our dreams. We come before our nation, not to petition with hat in hand, but to rise as one people and demand.

We have waited and watched. We have hoped and helped. We have sweated and suffered. We have often believed. We have frequently followed.

But we have nothing to show for the work of our hand, the tax of our labor. Our patience has been abused; our experience misused. Our silence has been seen as support. Our struggle has been ignored.

Enough is enough. We will wait no longer for the crumbs at America's door. We will not be meek, but mighty. We will not starve on past promises, but feast on future dreams.

We are an uncommon people. We are the majority, forged from all minorities. We are the masses of many, not the forces of few. We will continue our fight until the American way is just one way, until we have shared the wealth, until we have won our freedom.

This is not a simple vision, but a detailed plan.

Our plan is to build an American reality from the American rhetoric, to deliver a piece of the present and the fruits of the future to every man, to every woman, to every family.

We demand our birthright: the chance to be rich, the right to be free.

Our riches shall be the blooming of our communities, the bounty of a sure livelihood, the beauty of homes for our families with sickness driven from the door, the benefit of our taxes rather than their burden, and the best of our energy, land, and natural resources for all people.

Our freedom is the force of democracy, not the farce of federal fat and personal profit. In our freedom, only the people shall rule. Corporations shall have their role; producing jobs, providing products, paying taxes. No more, no less. They shall obey our wishes, respond to our needs, serve our communities. Our country shall be the citizens' wealth and our wealth shall build our country.

Government shall have its role: public servant to our good, fast follower to our sure steps. No more, no less. Our government shall shout with the public voice and no longer to a private whisper. In our government, the common concerns shall be the collective cause.

We represent a people's platform, not a politician's promise.

We demand the changes outlined in our platform and plan. We will work to win. We will have our birthright. We will live in richness and freedom. We will live in one country as one people.

Energy

  1. Put the people before profits at the utilities

  2. Promote conservation & guarantee safety

  3. Break the grip of the big energy companies.

Health Care

Health care must be:

To achieve this:

  1. Introduce a set of immediate reforms in the present health care system.

  2. Create a national health care system, along the following lines:

Housing

  1. Create more housing for low and moderate income people.

  2. Prevent the displacement of low and moderate income people from their homes

  3. Provide protection for tenants

  4. Clean up public housing

Work and Worker's Rights

Every person who wants to work has a right to a job - a job which pays a living wage and offers opportunities for advancement. Those who cannot work - the elderly, the disabled, single parents with small children - should receive enough income to afford them the basic necessities and allow them to live with dignity.

  1. Charge private industry with job creation and job training

  2. Charge government and big business with the final responsibility for full employment

  3. Provide an adequate income to every American

  4. Establish the fundamental rights of workers, to include:

  5. Reform the National Labor Relations Act

    For workers:

    For management:

  6. Guarantee Women's Rights

  7. Protect Families

  8. Protect All Workers

Rural Issues

  1. Preserve the family farm

  2. Break monopoly control of the food industry

  3. Guarantee a fair share for rural America

Community Development

  1. Clean up the Community Development Block Grant program.

  2. Support community-based economic development

  3. Control the effect of private development on the community

  4. Make public services serve the community

    1. More democracy ... in the neighborhood

       

      • Establish democratically elected neighborhood boards with jurisdiction over all public investment, major private development, and zoning matters within the neighborhood.
      • Allow appeal from the decision of neighborhood boards by popular vote of the neighborhood (neighborhood referendum).

       

    2. More democracy ... in elections

       

      • Institute automatic voter registration
      • Take the money out of politics by:
        1. Establishing public financing of campaigns.
        2. Setting maximum spending figures for candidates.
        3. Requiring strict disclosure of all campaign contributions.
        4. Prohibiting corporations from contributing any type of local, state, or federal election, including general election, primary, initiative, recall, and referendum.
      • Eliminate filing fees for elections.
      • Require that public officials be elected from the smallest practicable units - that is, from wards rather than at-large, from single-member districts rather than multi-member districts, etc.

       

    3. More democracy ... in government

       

      • Require recall, referendum, and initiative provisions at all levels of government.
      • Require that low and moderate income people be proportionately represented in all major political institutions, including: the Cabinet, the judiciary, the regulatory boards, and the national party conventions.
      • Select the members of government regulatory boards by direct popular election.
      • Require government offices to be open on evenings and Saturdays so that working people have access to them.
      • Limit the salaries of public officials to no more than the average income of their districts.
      • Compensate citizens who serve on public boards and commissions, testify at utility hearings, or represent the public in other ways for their time and expenses-as with jury duty.

    4. More democracy ... in big business
      • Require all corporations of over $10 million in assets to include worker- representative and low and moderate income members of the community on their corporate boards.
      • Expand the organizing and collective representation rights of workers, farmers, tenants, consumers, and communities in their confrontation with business corporations.