COME TO THE UNION MEETING

 

Tuesday, June 12, 5 PM, 600 W. Lafayette, Conference Room C

 

 

Support This Motion to Win a Good Contract and Stop Minergy Privatization

 

 

Whereas:

 

1)      Our contract expires on June 30. Management is stalling in negotiations. Their wage offer guarantees only a 2% “bonus” – with no base rate increases. Another 2% in bonuses is possible, but only if management says they can afford it. Finally another 2% in bonuses is also possible if management says they can afford it, and our supervisors give us good evaluations (merit pay). Management isn’t bargaining, they’re testing our resolve.

 

2)      AFSCME must not let management drag out negotiations until big business picks its next mayor. We should take advantage of the current lame duck administration’s confusion, demoralization, and its lack of support in the black community. We can’t wait until the next mayor is in his post-election honeymoon to demand a contract.

 

3)      Letting management set the pace and terms of negotiation has always gotten us lousy contracts. We must unit and take action to force management to bargain now. The leadership of AFSCME Local 207 was elected to lead a citywide fight for the rights of all city workers and city residents. Local 207 will continue to invite other city union officials to join us in united efforts, and will continue to warn them that failure to act now on their members’ behalf could adversely affect their chances for reelection in the future. But Local 207 will not wait till AFSCME Council 25 says it’s time to fight.

 

4)      Engler’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has issued a “draft permit” that would allow the Minergy Corporation to build a privately owned, operated and maintained incineration complex to replace the sewage plant incineration units. If this goes forward we will lose hundreds of city jobs, and much more cancer-causing dioxins will be spewed into our air. This is an attack on the black workers in a black city. It’s environmental racism. Minergy is another of Archer’s failed, corrupt strategies, and we must defeat it now to force the new mayor to pursue a better policy. Otherwise management will accelerate privatization and contracting-out throughout the city. The DEQ is holding a public hearing on Minergy on Thursday, June 28, at 7 PM, at the Delray United Action Council Center, 7914 W. Jefferson, just east of West End.

 

5)      June 1-3 members of Local 207’s Executive Board took part in a conference to establish a new youth-led Civil Rights Movement. Hundreds of people, mostly high school and university students, discussed events in their schools and in society, and decided to establish a new Civil Rights Movement. This conference was organized by BAMN (Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action & Integration, and Fight for Equality by Any Means Necessary). BAMN is the main force behind the “student intervenors” legal defense of Affirmative Action at U of M’s law school, and the organization that recently forced the University of California Regents to rescind their 1995 racist ban on Affirmative Action which started the nationwide anti-Affirmative Action backlash. Local 207 should provide leadership to Detroit, and be an important part of the New Civil Rights Movement.

 

 

Therefore:

 

1)      AFSCME Local 207 will hold a contract rally for all city workers, city residents and supporters on Thursday, June 28, at 4 PM, at the Jefferson entrance to the City-County Building.

 

2)      This rally will demand a new direction for Detroit:

 

a)      Good city worker contracts now!

 

b)      Stop privatizing and contracting-out city jobs! Support public schools! Stop the Engler/Archer appointed school board’s privatization attacks against public education.

 

c)      Fill city job vacancies so we can provide good services to the neighborhoods! Fix up the city parks! Expand public housing. Build a real mass transit system!

 

d)      Stop the racist attacks on Detroit! Join and support the new Civil Rights Movement!

 

3)      Local 207 will also sponsor a picket at the DEQ Minergy Public Hearing at 6:30 PM Thursday, June 28, at the Delray United Action Council Center, 7914 W. Jefferson, just east of West End.

 

 

Proposed June 12, 2001