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Federal Judge Sean Cox and Mayor Bing are trying to destroy our union.

At 4:30 PM last Friday Cox issued an order designed to cripple AFSCME Local 207, the largest City of Detroit AFSCME Local. Other Water Department unions and professional employee associations will also be affected. All Local 207 members, all unions, all Detroiters and all who stand for justice and progress must defend our union or face horrible consequences.

This is the place and the time where we must draw the line. We must show Bing and Cox that we will not let them push us back any further. If they get away with this, Bing will force through concession contracts with ease. He will be able to make a more convincing case for being appointed Emergency Manager. He will go ahead with plans to divide the city into better off areas and poverty zones (with no gas, lights, water, garbage pickup or public safety services).

But we can and must stop him. All of us must see this as not only a challenge to our self-respect and pride, but an opportunity to express how pissed off we are at how we’re treated on a daily basis, as workers and Detroiters. Last week, in Oakland, California, tens of thousands of marchers chanted, “Occupy, Shut It Down, Oakland Don’t F—K Around!” And neither can Detroit. We must step up NOW and stop the second-class treatment!

WHAT COX’S ORDER SAYS

• Excused hours for doing union work will be limited to attending grievance hearings and negotiations. WITHOUT AN ELECTED STAFF, HOW WILL THE UNION FUNCTION? HOW WILL WE KEEP FIGHTING?
• Subcontracting, outsourcing and privatization will be allowed without limits, and the City Charter provisions that require Detroit voter approval before major portions of DWSD can be sold are now voided.   IF THIS STICKS, HOW LONG BEFORE THEY PRIVATIZE EVERYTHING?
• DWSD will have separate labor contracts from the rest of City workers. DIVIDE AND CONQUOR IS THE GAME. EVERYONE’S CONTRACTS WILL BE MUCH WORSE.
• The duration for which discipline stays on your record and be used against you will increase from 14 months to 36 months. THEN THEY CAN DENY US OUR PROMOTIONS.
• Contract negotiations begin in a few months, management will demand job title combinations. THAT IS SO THEY CAN ELIMINATE WORKERS BY HAVING US DO TWO JOBS.
• Promotions and opportunities to work overtime will no longer be based on seniority, and there will be no overtime equalization. Management will be free to determine who gets promoted and who gets overtime at their discretion. MEANING KEEP YOUR BOSS HAPPY AT ALL TIMES AND DON’T FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHTS.
• All written or unwritten work rules are now voided. WHATEVR THE BOSS SAYS, GOES.
• The union is forbidden from going to the Michigan Employment Relation Commission or Wayne County Circuit Court over this order.  THAT LEAVES THE INITIAL DECISION ON OUR LEGAL APPEALS UP TO JUDGE COX HIMSELF!
• Furloughs will no longer affect any DWSD employees, but there are only a few who of us who are still suffering this injustice. AND AT WHAT COST?

None of this has anything to do with keeping the WWTP in compliance with the Clean Water Act. None of it deals with decades of mismanagement and corruption. None of it addresses the private contractors getting paid for inferior work. This is union busting and nothing else.

There were no hearings, no negotiations, and no notice. Cox issued his orders only hours after receiving the appointed committee’s report, so he obviously had his order pre-written. The EPA was the originator of the suit in 1977. They had nothing to do with this order, whose purpose was supposedly to stop the WWTP from polluting the Detroit River. The pollution from WWTP, by the way, has nothing to do with the workers in fresh water, grounds, building attendants, etc. AND HOW IN HELL DOES CUTTING OUT THE UNION’S STAFF STOP POLLUTION?

Worse yet, the court documents include Chris Brown’s anti-union wish list which is, unbelievably, much worse than the above. If we don’t stop this unjust outrage, the entire list will be imposed shortly, including privatizing Security, Building Attendants, Grounds, Vehicle Maintenance, Storekeepers, etc.

WHY THEY ARE ATTACKING AFSCME LOCAL 207

Local 207 has been targeted because we are the last stand in the defense of Detroit. Since the current leadership was first elected at the end of 2000, this union has been the strongest, most progressive union in the city, recognized nation-wide for never giving in, never giving up and never selling out.

Over the years it has been Local 207 which knocked back repeated attempts to takeover and privatize Detroit’s Water Department. We defeated both major attempts to privatize incineration at the WWTP, and exposed the criminal bribery of the Synagro affair.

We have always stood up for Detroit and the black community. We were instrumental in the on-going fight to maintain affirmative action in Michigan, organizing our members to testify at a Michigan Civil Rights Commission hearing against the racist, fraudulent efforts to rob black and Latina/o youth of access to higher education. One of our main opponents in our battle to defend affirmative action was Michigan Attorney-General Mike Cox, Judge Cox’s brother. In 2003, we helped mobilize over 1,000 Detroiters to join the 50,000 people rallying in Washington, D.C. for affirmative action. We have worked closely with the organization that led those fights, The Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN). We’ve been sued twice for “reverse discrimination” due to our strong stands against racism and for equality. We won both times.

When others were afraid of Kilpartick or in bed with his corrupt regime, we openly called for his resignation. And when some of his cronies tried to stop our members from demonstrating in front of the City-County Building, Local 207 members out-pushed and out-lasted them. And we brought him down.

We have led all City unions in the fight to resist the calls for more and more contract concession, and have reduced those concessions as a result. We have the highest functioning AFSCME Local in the City, filing 300-400 grievances a year and taking them as far as we can. We have been able to bring many people who were unjustly fired back to work. At AFSCME national conventions we are the delegates who are unafraid to speak the plain truth, standing for equal rights, immigrant rights, against the endless wars, and against increasing union dues merely to give it to a bunch of sellout politicians who keep stabbing workers in the back.

We beat him in court when Kilpatrick tried to deny city workers the right to speak to the news media. We have repeatedly defeated Management in court and forced them to rehire or back off union officers and stewards. We have won in court over dues issues, and forced Management to bring Wastewater Techs into the union and to use seniority to fill those positions. We recently won our case against the Department’s attempts to make D-Licenses a requirement for promotions.

For our efforts, the leadership and membership of 207 have rightly earned hatred and fear from Dave Bing, his Chief Operating Officer Chris Brown (ex-DTE executive), and the Republican union-hating, Detroit-hating,  right-wingers. We welcome their hatred and wear it as a badge of honor.

At the end of 2009, Bing cut off AFSCME’s dues deduction to try and starve us out because we refused to cave in to Bing’s contract demands. Most AFSCME Locals finally began getting dues deduction in May of 2011, but Local 207 had to go to court and only got our dues reinstated at the end of September. While this created hardships, it did not break us. We are still fighting. And that is why they have turned to a right-wing Republican like Judge Cox to save them from the fighting spirit of Detroit.

We are filing legal action along with AFSCME Council 25, but this battle will be won or lost by the members and the people of Detroit. We can fight this, we can win, and we must. But it will mean standing and fighting like never before. If the bus drivers can do it, so can we. We need to stand together with the bus drivers, bus mechanics and Wayne County workers who are all under attack from corrupt and incompetent Management. Together we can defend our jobs, our city services and our communities. BE AT THIS MEETING AND BE PREPARED TO GET SERIOUS. THURSDAY NOVEMBER 10TH, 4:30 PM, 600 W. LAFAYETTE. BE THERE!