Emergency Town Hall Endorses Program of Action to Fight Detroit Bankruptcy Restructuring

Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African News Wire, with Lila Cabbil of the D-REM, co-chairing the Emergency Town Hall meeting at Central United Methodist Church in downtown Detroit. The meeting drew up a plan of action to fight the bankruptcy., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

Emergency Town Hall Endorses Program of Action to Fight Bankruptcy Restructuring

Workers, retirees, community says no to bankers’ “plan of adjustment”

By Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire

A standing-room-only audience at the Central United Methodist Church came out after a snow storm to participate in an Emergency Town Hall meeting designed to respond to the “Plan of Adjustment” filed in federal bankruptcy court in Detroit. The 400-plus page legal document is designed to institutionalize corporate rule over the people of this majority African American city.

This event was planned by a coalition of organizations fighting emergency management and the forced bankruptcy of this major mid-western city. The organizations involved included the Moratorium NOW! Coalition, Detroiters Resisting Emergency Management (D-REM), the National Action Network (NAN) Detroit chapter, the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute and the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization (MWRO).

The crowd was made up of many retired municipal employees who had rendered decades of public service to city government. Under the state-imposed emergency manager Kevyn Orr’s plan, retirees will be subjected to cuts that are tantamount to 70 percent of their overall income and benefits package.

Cheryl LaBash, a retired city employee and a member of the Stop the Theft of Our Pensions Committee (STOPC), provided a power-point summary of the Orr plan. She noted that the onus of the cuts will be on the retirees and workers of Detroit.

“They intend to pay the banks and bondholders most of what they claim is owed to them. The major revenue-generating departments and other services are to be outsourced and privatized,” LaBash reported.

She noted that within the report although there is some acknowledgement of the industrial restructuring of auto and steel beginning in the 1970s contributing to the economic downturn in the city, there was no mention of the foreclosure and eviction crisis which destroyed large sections of the municipality including neighborhoods, small businesses, community organizations, schools and consequently property taxes. There were tens of thousands of foreclosures in the city beginning in 2007 extending to the present.

These foreclosures were the direct result of the predatory lending of the banks and the failure of state and local government to impose a moratorium on evictions by these financial institutions and their agents. Hundreds of millions of dollars of federal funds and settlement monies from fines paid by banks have been funneled into the state of Michigan but very little has reached Detroit and other distressed cities to support the stabilization and reconstruction of working class communities.

A so-called blight removal authority is in effect to not repair and rebuild neighborhoods but to bulldoze them. There is no mention within Orr’s document of adjustment that calls for the creation of jobs, living assistance, healthcare and educational opportunities for the 700,000 residents of the beleaguered city.

Monica Lewis Patrick, a community organizer and former aide to retired City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson, reflected on the victories won by the people of Detroit in recent years related to the defeat of mayoral control of the public schools and the referendum which voted against the imposition of emergency management in 2012. The right-wing state legislature and multi-millionaire Republican Gov. Rick Snyder conspired and passed Public Act 436 which re-imposed the emergency manager law with provisions that disallow a public referendum on its existence.

A Program of Action Adopted

Several proposals were put forward by the Town Hall Meeting organizers. On April 1 there will be a hearing for objectors to the Orr plan of adjustment and forms were distributed for stakeholders to formally oppose the program of austerity before presiding federal judge Steven Rhodes.

The Moratorium NOW! Coalition called for a mass demonstration in front of the courthouse encompassing workers, retirees and community residents demanding that the massive cuts in pensions, healthcare benefits as well as the wholesale privatization and theft of public assets including the water department, the Detroit Institute of Arts, pubic lighting and Belle Isle be either halted or reversed. JoAnn Watson, the recently retired City Councilwoman who held out against emergency management and privatization, addressed the crowd saying that “the plan to take over Detroit has been in the offing for years.”

Watson called upon the people to resist the plan of adjustment. She said that the federal government should be challenged to intervene on behalf of the people of the city.

United States Congressman John Conyers of the 13th District also spoke to the audience saying that he would bring the plight of Detroiters directly to the Congress and the White House. “This is a great meeting we must keep up the pressure.”

The president of the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) representing the city’s bus drivers, Fred Westbrook, called for a demonstration in Washington. “Detroit is a test case. If they can carry this out here it will spread across the country.”

Atty. Jerome Goldberg, a lawyer in the bankruptcy proceeding representing retiree David Sole, an organizer in STOPC, said that developments in the next few weeks will be critical. Workers, retirees and the community must come out in force to stop the banks and the bondholders in their plans to implement this program on the people of Detroit.

Later David Sole told the audience that “recognition of labor unions was not won within the courts. It was the direct action of workers which won the gains of the labor movement. The same is true for civil rights and the end to the Vietnam War. These advances were largely won in the streets and we must learn from history.”

A proposal to organize a “Youth March for Jobs” on April 4, the 46th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was advanced by Tom Michalak of Fight Imperialism Stand Together (FIST) organization. Michalak said that “under this system there is no hope for youth we have to begin to organize and fight for jobs and education.”

Atty. Alice Jennings proposed that May Day be utilized to call for a “no work, no school and no shopping day.” Jennings who works with the Detroit Resisting Emergency Management (D-REM) noted that such actions would draw the attention of people around the country.

People who attended the Town Hall signed up for the various committees to continue working to defeat Orr’s plan. Several people came to the Moratorium NOW! Coalition literature table after the meeting asking when the march on Washington would take place. People emphasized that we need to organize buses and mobilize people.

The meeting illustrated the rising anger in the city of Detroit over the attacks being waged by the system of emergency management at the behest of the banks. More people understand that it will take an organized effort to effectively address the current program of the ruling class.