Rally now endorsed by AFSCME #345,

Representing 1900 Detroit Public School Building Attendants and Cafeteria Workers!

 

A Call to Action to All City Workers: Come to the Rally!

 

Demand a Good Contract Now!

 

No Privatization! Save Public Jobs!

Defend and Expand City Services in Detroit!

 

Rally---Thursday, June 28, 4:00 PM

City-County Building---Jefferson Entrance

 

 

...Then Picket the Public Hearing on Minergy:

 

Thursday, June 28, 6:30 PM,

Delray United Action Council Center

7914 W. Jefferson---Just east of West End (Springwells)

 

No Privatization of Sewage Plant Incineration!

 

The Time to Fight Is Now!

 

Two days before our contract expires, AFSCME Local 207 is sponsoring a rally for all city workers and supporters to demand that management stop stalling and bring a decent contract offer to the negotiating table now! We won't accept further attacks on public jobs. We won't accept further attacks on city services in our city--Detroit. We have to put management on notice that we're not backing down.

 

We are fighting for more than just a contract, and for more than just ourselves. Our fight can and will determine the future of our city. We cannot allow our neighborhoods and our schools to continue to decline. Rebuilding Detroit requires defending and expanding public services and providing unionized public workers with decent, secure, and well-paying jobs.

 

The Archer plan for revitalizing Detroit has failed to improve the quality of life for the vast majority of Detroiters. For years Archer has given the Illiches, the Moneghans, and the Fords city tax dollars which they have used to vastly expand their private fortunes. At the same time, he has called on Detroit city workers to accept wage freezes and job cuts. He has overseen the continued decline and degradation of our neighborhoods, our roads, our parks, and our communities. He has sponsored the corporations' union-busting privatization schemes.

 

Detroit's working class and black communities must not bear the costs of Archer's corporate policies any longer. The quality of our lives and our neighborhoods can only improve if an organized, political force steps forward determined to fight for the interests of the majority of Detroiters. Detroit's unionized city workers can and must be this leading force. The main protections and improvements that we seek in our new contract--stopping privatization, improving city services, defeating merit pay, and assuring that Detroit's public workforce earns a decent living--are precisely what is needed to move Detroit forward and to better our city.

 

No one should underestimate our power (like management is currently doing). We can put a serious squeeze on the city officials, their lying lawyers and various lackeys. To do it is simple. It first requires all city workers--starting with YOU--to understand just how much power we have…if we act. When we act, and act in the interest of the black and working class majority of Detroit, and union members throughout the region, we have tremendous power.

 

Two years ago, the Detroit teachers' strike proved that the Archer administration could be defeated and that Detroit workers could win tremendous community support if they were fighting for a program that combined the interests of Detroit teachers and Detroit's majority poor and working class communities. Now, teachers and other school workers need our leadership in order to protect the schools from further ransacking and cuts at the hands of Archer's Corporate Reform Board and to stop the privatization of their jobs. If we win strong protections against Archer's privatization schemes in our new contract, we will do a great deal to protect the jobs of our AFSCME brothers and sisters, and the educational opportunities of our children.

 

The Archer administration has sucked up to every corporate owner, and sold off every bit of Detroit they could sell for long enough. It's time we put and end to the bullsh_t.

 

Why AFSCME Local 207 is Leading The Fight of All City Workers

 

Privatization, low wages, skyrocketing health coverage deductions, unfilled job vacancies--these aren't just Local 207 issues; they aren't just city workers' issues; they are issues for all of us who live in Detroit--ourselves, our families, friends and neighbors. They are citywide issues, affecting the level of services we can provide to our whole city. We have a huge well of support, starting with our fellow City workers, and the black working class of Detroit. If we act, and we organize this support now behind determined leadership, we will win…PERIOD.

 

Through nearly ten years of unprecedented corporate profits City workers have been saddled with a one concession contract after another. Archer's Press Secretary recently bragged that $19 billion in private money has been invested in Detroit since 1994! Not a dime of this money has gone to the working class, black and poor majority in Detroit! This is the year! Economists reported last month that despite a slow down, the economy is still growing. The fight for the decent contract that we deserve can be delayed no longer.

 

Hell No! Not This Time!

 

At the May 25th AFSCME Master Contract negotiations management presented their BS wage offer. This insult is a test of all City workers' determination to be treated with dignity in these negotiations. This offer is a wake up call to unite and shout in unison--HELL NO, NOT THIS TIME!

 

After the rally downtown, we will be picketing a public hearing called by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). This hearing is being held for the public to comment an whether or not the DEQ should issue a permit for Minergy corporation to burn the sludge which is currently being incinerated at the City's Sewage Plant. This is an attempt by the lame-duck Archer administration to repay some of his corporate backers by privatizing hundreds of city jobs.

 

This concerns all city workers! If they can privatize a major portion of jobs at the Sewage Plant, every city worker's job is in jeopardy. We must use these negotiations to win stronger contract language concerning privatization and contracting-out. We must defeat Minergy to save all city jobs!

 

To Hell With Management's

NO RAISE Offer!

 

• July 1, 2001: 2% bonus based on straight time worked;

 

• July 1, 2002: 1% bonus based on straight time worked, and contingent on City's ability to pay;

 

• First pay check in December 2002: 1% bonus based on straight time worked, and contingent on City's ability to pay, and contingent on a favorable evaluation by management (merit pay);

 

• July 1, 2003: Same as July 1, 2002;

 

• First pay check in December 2003: Same as Dec. 2002.

 

The only guaranteed money is a 2% bonus on July 1, 2001. Bonuses wouldn’t count off-shift premium, overtime or extra pay earned for working holidays. A third of the bonuses are merit pay, based on evaluations by your supervisor.

 

Negotiations Stalled--Membership Action Is the Only Way Forward

 

Negotiations so far have been a farce. Management has not seen the need to negotiate for real because they are underestimating the strength and resolve of city workers. The city officials think that waiting is their best bet. As a result, negotiations are paralyzed. Negotiations will go nowhere good until the members take them into our hands and force management to bargain. The negotiators by themselves can't make management stop stalling. We--all city workers united--are the power behind our side of negotiations; our power must be expressed in action. Only our power can change these negotiations from a paralyzed farce into something positive for all the city unions and the whole city of Detroit.

 

Management's initial offer does not determine what we win--that is decided by how united we are, and how hard we fight. The offer does require a loud and determined response from us. If the negotiations keep going as they are now, we will end up with another lousy contract. We can change this overnight! City workers can and must set the agenda in these negotiations, and the agenda for Detroit's political future. A united

membership taking bold action now will put us on the road toward victory.

 

We Must Act Now--Delay Is

Management's Ploy

 

A large and determined turnout from all City workers at both of the Thursday, June 28 demonstrations will be crucial. If you ever want to have anything to say about your wages and benefits, if you want a job tomorrow, June 28 is the time to come and demonstrate.

Waiting to deal with the next mayor is a mistake. Archer's administration is a sinking ship, with more rats jumping off everyday. We should take advantage of this chaos. The opportunity for city worker unions to assert leadership through bold action, and win decent contracts this year has grown considerably. We are in a stronger position if we force Archer to deal with us NOW than if we wait and deal with the next mayor during his political honeymoon. When we end up dealing with the next administration, whichever corporate-sponsored politician wins, we will be in a stronger position if we have used our strength now against the out-going Archer administration.

 

We Need Fair, Open Negotiations, Strong Contract Demands and a United Fight for Real Gains!

 

On May 19 AFSCME sponsored a Rally at Metro Airport demanding contracts for County workers. Over 500 union members attended. AFSCME can do the same for Detroit City workers if our union officials will get off the dime. Tell your union officials to help build the rally on June 28, and no matter what, bring yourself and some friends.

AFSCME's Negotiation Team has yet to put forward their official wage demands, but Local 207 is urging support for the following demands, which are tailored to unite all city workers behind common goals:

 

• $1.50 per hour for each year of the three year contract;

 

• Full COLA folded into base wage;

 

• Eliminate performance pay and frozen minimums--bring all frozen minimum titles up to their maximum pay rates;

 

• No city worker should earn less than $12 per hour.

 

The current Master Contract's Article #19 (Contractual Work) says management can't lay off currently employed workers or reduce overtime through contracting-out. But they continue to reduce City positions, and that reduces our bargaining power, as well as jobs for city youth. Hundreds of jobs at the Sewage Plant are currently threatened with privatization, and Water Works Park is under the gun as well. Local 207 proposed inserting language to stop management from using contracting-out and privatization to eliminate positions. Council 25 opposed it. They even opposed putting the language from the City Charter on privatization into our contract! The members must assert leadership over these negotiations or none of our jobs are safe.

 

Come to the Rally! Thursday, June 28, 4 PM!