• Union/community unity to stop bus and other service cuts & public worker layoffs! NO contract concessions!
• Chop at the top! Save money – eliminate management’s free cars, stipends and other perks!
• Defend public education, DPS workers & students!
• Hold all-union meetings to adopt unified plan of action!
• No reliance on politicians – organize to defend ourselves!
• Bailout Detroit – demand federal funds now!
• Build the New Civil Rights Movement and Rebuild the Labor Movement!

August 19th – over 1,000 public workers and supporters rallied against service cuts and contract concessions

View/print page in its original format (Adobe PDF file)

Download page in Word document format

We Need a United Community-Public Worker Strike Now!

The united union-community pickets, rallies and meetings are already winning victories! On August 27th, Mayor Dave Bing rescinded thes113 bus driver layoffs, and backed off his threat to cut weekend busses. He has repeatedly set arbitrary deadlines for unions to concede to his concession demands, and he has repeatedly backed away them. His threat of over 300 layoffs for August 28th has now been reduced to 205 layoffs. He said the City would be broke in October, then he said December.

Detroit Public Schools Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bob refused to negotiate with DPS employees all summer. But after thousands of picketers descended on the School Center Building on August 24th, he extended union contracts for 60 days to negotiate. Reportedly he also said he has miraculously found another $240 million.

Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano now says that he “found” another $10 million.

All this shows that there is money to save our city, we just have to organize ourselves to demand it. The level of union and community cooperation and struggle is unprecedented. But the 3 stooges for big business – Bing, Bobb and Ficano, are far from defeated. If we back off just when we’re beginning to win, they will hit us like a ton of bricks. We must redouble our efforts, and not cut separate deals. We are stronger together. Any union members who are asked to vote for a concession contract should vote HELL NO! Don’t capitulate—escalate!

Only a community-backed public workers strike can save Detroit—the nations’ largest black community. Bing, Bobb and Ficano want to degrade, dismantle and privatize Detroit’s public services and public education. Their massive layoffs and contract concession would cripple public services, reduce living standards and increase unemployment. Bing now wants 78 unpaid furlough days over 3 years (rather than the 52 over 2 years that he originally demanded).

Every dollar that is taken from workers and poor people through these cuts will go to the corporations that Bing, Bobb and Ficano loyally serve. We won’t accept and more second-class treatment! Detroit city, Wayne County and DPS workers and the community are under coordinated attack, and must we strike back together.

Every student, unemployed person, and anyone who wants to save our city should actively participate and strike to win by any means necessary! Demand that Detroit be given the federal funds we deserve to save our jobs, our standard of living, our services, and the future of our city!

Bail Out Detroit! We are engaged in an historic struggle. Our goals are jobs, decent living standards, equal quality education and public services, and a viable future for Detroit and our youth. But Detroit is not alone. There is a nation-wide attack on public services, unions, workers and the poor. First the corporations caused the financial crisis, and then they got a trillion dollar federal bailout. That allowed them to continue giving executives billions in bonuses. Now they want to repay the banks that financed the bailouts by lowering the expectations, living standard, and services for workers, the unemployed and poor people.

The government says the banks are too big to fail, and it acts like Detroit is too black to survive. Wall Street received over a trillion dollars in federal bailouts. That’s over 5,000 times Detroit’s deficit. There is no lack of money. There is racist hostility toward Detroit, the nation’s largest black community. There is an illusion that we’ll tolerate second-class treatment forever. There is a vacuum of political leadership. Rather than trying to trying to squeeze blood from a stone, Mayor Bing should be camping out at the White House until Detroit gets the bailout we need and deserve. But that will only happen when we raise enough dust to strike fear into the hearts of the corporations and their politicians.

Demand Federal Funds Now! Federal stimulus money was supposed to cut unemployment. But in public employment, where black people and Latina/os are disproportionately represented, workers are being cut along with the services they provide. This means fewer jobs and services for the communities that need them the most. This fight is not only about maintaining current public jobs. It’s about replacing jobs lost in manufacturing with public jobs to rebuild our city, state and nation’s crumbling infrastructure. It’s about converting to a new sustainable economy that will not destroy the environment that we all depend on. Only lip service is now being paid to such necessities. But we need jobs, and the nation needs workers to pave the road to a livable future. Every unemployed person has a stake in our victory, and your leadership is crucial. This fight starts with jobs, services, living standards and equal, quality, integrated public education in Detroit. If Detroiters lead the fight, other communities will learn from our example and fight back too.

Building the New Civil Rights Movement and Rebuilding the Labor Movement! On July 22nd city workers, led by AFSCME Local 207, held a large picket and rally downtown. On August 5th Local 207 sponsored a union-community meeting at the Northwest Activities Center. Over 200 officials and members from city, county and DPS unions participated. DPS students from the civil right group BAMN provided inspiration and fresh leadership. Everyone left the meeting with the determination and confidence to fight back and win. Our next meeting will be bigger and better. Be sure to attend. Through these mass meetings and escalating actions we are building the new civil right movement and rebuilding the labor movement necessary to win.

Let’s Stick Together! Bing’s bus cuts mean bus riders will lose their jobs because they can’t get to work. Thousands of city layoffs will add to Detroit depression-level jobless rate. Detroit needs every job it can get, not a Mayor hell-bent on increasing unemployment! In 2005, bus drivers organized a meeting of a thousand angry drivers and riders that forced Mayor Kilpatrick to back off his bus cuts. But then separate deals were cut, people were demobilized and Kilpatrick was allowed to impose contract concessions on most city workers, and cut city jobs by 39%. This time we must build a more permanent unity – for decent contracts for all public workers – and for equal, quality services for black and Latina/o communities in particular. Union leaders must call all-public worker union meetings to plan our next moves. There is no better place to revive the fight for workers’ and civil rights than Detroit. The future of all unions is on the line and all unions should join this fight, as they did during the Detroit newspaper strike in the 1990s. But this time we must ignore injunctions against mass picketing and fight to win by any means necessary!

Chop at the Top! While crying broke, Bing gave big raises to his top aides before he imposed 10% cuts on them. He continues to provide free city cars or $500-$600 transportation stipends to many top managers! Ficano has a record 233 high-paid appointees working for him. To trim a tree, you should start chopping at the top. But Bing, Bobb and Ficano are laying off thousands of workers and cutting vital services just as the unemployment is making those services more crucial. The coordinated attack on public services and public workers must be met with a coordinated defense.

Defend Public Education for Detroit Youth! Detroit Public Schools Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb is pulling the plug on our public schools. While DPS has been on life support for years, we need the strong medicine of more books and supplies, better schools and better-paid teachers, not a visit from Dr. Kevorkian! Bobb says he’s cleaning house, but he’s actually cleaning out the cash drawer, handing out multi-million dollar no-bid contracts to Compuware and to the firm Bobb worked for until riding into Detroit as a privatizing hired gun. We must defend public education, one of society’s most effective democratic leveling policies.

Unless we stop Bobb, and those behind him, Detroit will be used as a national model for the destruction and privatization of public education. Detroit youth are every bit as capable as other youth of bright educated futures – and we must demand the equitable education our community deserves – not more inferior, separate and unequal schooling. DPS teachers’ and workers’ fates are tied to the Detroit black and Latina/o communities and students. Unity between students and teachers, and youth leadership are the keys to victory.

No Reliance on Politicians! To win we must build our struggle independently of the politicians who have continually failed us because they’re tied to, and corrupted by, the corporations that fund their campaigns. Looking to the next election, and then the next will only lead us to into another blind alley and another beating. We must build civil rights and labor campaigns and movements that are not bound to, or limited by what any politician says is "realistic" (that is, acceptable to the corporations).

This is a battle for workers’ rights and civil rights. Some of the major campaigns led by Martin Luther King involved bus transportation, education and a public workers’ strike. Martin Luther King never subordinated the civil right movement to the Democrats. By building the civil rights movement independently of the Democrats and Republicans, he forced Presidents Kennedy and Johnson to push through historic civil rights legislation. Let’s organize like Dr. King and dare the politicians to oppose our fight for justice.

FOR INFO OR TO HELP: 313-965-1601 or afscme207@sbcglobal.net