Now is the opportunity that city workers have been waiting for to unite and take action to demand a decent contract: $1.50 per hour raise per year, ending health insurance pay deductions, and elimination of the contracting-out and privatization of city jobs and services.

           

Detroit school workers and city workers are under the same privatization attacks. Our schools need more resources – but instead the appointed school board is laying off social workers, skilled trades, secretaries and custodians, and spending $78.5 million in their first major phase of privatization. All across the nation urban school districts are being taken over, the largely black city residents denied the right to elect their own school officials, the unions attacked and the schools privatized. In response to these attacks in Detroit three protests have been held in the last few weeks involving hundreds of school workers, parents, students and community members, demanding that the cutbacks and layoffs be rescinded. Large meetings have called for a “Day of Action” on Wednesday, February 20, including a massive rally at the School Board meeting endorsed by Detroit AFSCME Presidents, the DFT, and many more unions. City workers must take united action with school workers for our joint defense.

           

City worker contracts expired last July, and management has refused to negotiate for months. Teachers are now negotiating their contract. This is our window of opportunity. If city workers and school workers take action on the same day in defense of Detroit’s public schools and services Mayor Kilpatrick (who appoints the school board) will know that we will not settle for a concession contract, and that we want real negotiations now.

           

The future course for Detroit is not set. Things remain fluid. We have a new mayor, and the largest turnover in the City Council in a long time. Many of these politicians are trying to prove themselves in their first months in office. We must act now to influence their decisions – decisions which will affect all city workers and residents for a long time.

           

It is the perfect opportunity for city unions to make a show of unified action to push things forward – toward a decent labor contract, and the hiring of more city workers, properly trained and equipped, to provide improved and expanded city services, and public schools with resources equal to the suburban districts. When city workers unite, among ourselves, and with others who have common interests such as the school workers, we can set a new agenda for Detroit.

Detroit is at a Crossroads

           

Mayor Kilpatrick has implied that city workers are not doing our jobs, but city workers know that management is failing to supply us with enough staff, modern equipment and competent organization to provide the services Detroiters deserve. But Kilpatrick has also said we need to get rid of consultants and contractors who are just wasting money. Local 207 has invited the mayor to meet with our local membership so that he can hear first-hand how the contractors plunder the city treasury, take Detroit jobs, and shift political control of our city to the suburban corporations. But words are cheap. The real actions of politicians will be determined by how city workers, other public and private sector workers, and the community respond to the current challenge. Leadership and resolute action on the part of our unions will be decisive.

 

Pattern Being Set Now For Our Contract

           

City workers must act while this window of opportunity is open. If we are to win, we must link our struggle with those fighting interconnected struggles. The fight being waged against the educational cutbacks and school worker layoffs is important for city workers. The mayor appoints the school board which is now cutting back on our children's education and laying off public workers, and privatizing their jobs. Kilpatrick will learn lessons on how to deal with his own public work force by watching how unions and the community respond. We must support this fight, and stand up for our own contracts at the same time, or whatever happens to the school workers will happen to us next.

 

Build Unity to Win

           

The AFSCME Master Contract generally sets the pattern for all city union contracts. The AFSCME Contract has been extended day-by-day since July 1, 2001. Negotiations stopped long ago, and Mayor Kilpatrick has not responded to AFSCME’s request for negotiations to resume. City workers’ futures are linked, whether we are clericals, bus drivers, mechanics, etc. AFSCME represents the most city workers, and should be building unified action. This includes building unity between the AFSCME locals. Now is not the time to pit local against local, union against union, struggle against struggle. That weakens us. We need serious discussion on the real issues: how to win a good contract and stop privatization.

 

Newspapers Urge Mayor to Attack Us

           

The mayor is getting lots of free advice from the Detroit News and Free Press to "take on the unions, demand concessions, privatize departments, and force us to bid for our jobs against private nonunion companies." We must convince the community that to do so would be wrong for Detroit, and convince the mayor that it would be politically unwise for him. In the mid-1990s the newspapers lost over $300 million in a dirty war against their unions. But then they're owned by the two largest newspaper chains in the nation. They don't care if Detroit is torn apart and financially ruined trying to bust city unions to increase profits for suburban corporations. And they don’t care about Kilpatrick’s political career either.

           

Just before Archer left office he said that if the city sold the DEHOCO land in Plymouth that there would be a $30-40 million surplus. That sale has been approved but the newspapers still claim that the city is in financial crisis without presenting a shred of proof. The money is there, it's just being wasted on private contractors who buy politicians at fire sale prices.

           

The corporations finance politicians' campaigns, then they press the politicians to privatize city services so the corporations can pocket the city taxes. This process corrupts politicians. Former-mayor Archer rammed the Minergy contract to privatize sewage plant sludge incineration through City Council. Now Archer is working for the corporate law firm which represents Minergy! Privatization is political corruption.

           

When our jobs are privatized they generally go to nonunion companies with profit, not service as their bottom line. Many city neighborhoods are kept more economically and socially stable, especially during recessions, by families of city workers. Private companies will bring in a much more white workforce from outside Detroit, and destabilize many Detroit neighborhoods.

Our Fates Are Linked To DPS Workers

           

When Michigan Governor Engler eliminated the elected Detroit School Board of Education and replaced it with a corporate-dominated appointed board, we were told that our schools would improve. At that point the DPS had a $100 million surplus. Now the board says it is $100 million in the red!

           

The board and Superintendent Burnley have now exposed the real racist purpose for the takeover: program cutbacks, school closings, layoffs and privatization for the mostly black Detroit schools! Over 700 social workers, teachers, skilled trades and custodians have already been laid off, with more layoffs planned. Our boss, Mayor Kilpatrick, who was a teacher, should condemn the school cuts and the appointed board! The City Council should do the same. And the Mayor’s “Labor Liaison”, Willie Hampton, President of Service Employees International Union Local 79, should have raised hell by now. The teachers have started their contract negotiations, and their union leadership is under pressure from the members to fight for a decent contract. The situation is very volatile. Many of the same teachers, students and community members leading the fight for affirmative action are, quite naturally, leading this interconnected struggle too. This is not just a "labor issue" it is a civil rights issue as well. It is the struggle against separate and unequal education for Detroit's children and youth. It is the future of the black community. It is our fight.

 

Missed Opportunity Three Years Ago

           

In September of 1999 AFSCME accepted yet another concession contract just a couple weeks before the teachers stuck against some of the same concessions that were rammed down our throats. The teachers defeated Engler’s vicious anti-teacher-strike law by calling for lower class sizes and better equipment and supplies for the students. This way they cemented the support of the community, and made it impossible for Engler to enforce his anti-union laws. If we had waged a joint strike with the teachers, we both could have gotten better contracts, and a built an alliance which would help us all today. But today we have another chance to build unity in action.

           

Sometimes the only way to defend ourselves is by striking. The way things are going, we may be heading in that direction for both the school workers and city workers. Building unity now among all city workers, and with other public workers, and standing up to defend Detroit's public schools and services from being taken over by profit-driven companies will provide a solid basis from which to fight such a battle. We can not let the mayor believe that we will never strike to defend ourselves and Detroit. As we take action to force contract negotiations to reopen, the mayor must understand that if we are forced to strike, we will strike united, strike hard, and strike to win.

 

We Need a City-Wide Union Meeting

           

AFSCME 207 urges all local presidents to build a city-wide meeting open to members of the 17 AFSCME locals which fall under the Master Contract. We urge all members of AFSCME locals to tell your union presidents, officers and stewards that we need a city-wide AFSCME meeting now. This should be only the first in a series of city-wide meetings, and they should be expanded to include other city workers and members of the community as well. We need an undefeatable united front based on common interests.

           

There can no be no good reason for not building a city-wide meeting. If local 207 and members from other AFSCME locals are not able to convince the AFSCME presidents to do it, then Local 207 will, and we will invite officers and members of the other locals to fully participate. There is no time to waste.