April 1, 2014 at 2:40 pm
Abayomi Azikiwe, PANW Editor, Quoted in Detroit News: 'Retirees, Residents Protest Detroit's Debt-cutting Plan'
Christine Ferretti
The Detroit News
Detroit — Residents, activists and retirees rallied outside the federal courthouse on Tuesday to react and file objections to the city’s amended debt-cutting bankruptcy plan.
The newest plan, filed late Monday, recommends steeper cuts to retiree pensions unless retirees support a restructuring plan that includes a proposed pot of millions to protect the Detroit Institute of Arts from creditors.
“They are trying to intimidate retirees, workers and the residents of the city of Detroit,” Abayomi Azikiwe, a 47-year resident and activist with Moratorium Now, said following the morning protest that drew several hundred. “It’s shameful.”
Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr’s latest plan recommends an increase in the pension cuts facing retired police and firefighters if they resist the $816 million plan to shore up pensions and shield the DIA collection from a fire sale. The proposal bumps a 10 percent proposed cut to 14 percent of their monthly pension if they decline to settle. Orr plan proposes a cut of up to 34 percent for the pensions of retired non-uniform city workers.
“You might as well find me a cardboard box to live in now,” said David Sole, a retiree being represented in the city’s bankruptcy case, in reaction to Orr’s plan.
Orr, however, in a statement Monday called the plan “feasible” and notes that it allows the city to reduce its $18 billion in debt, live within its means and focus on essential public services.
The recommended pension cuts could be softened, if retirees vote in favor of Orr’s plan and agree to drop an appeal of a bankruptcy judge’s ruling in December that vested pension benefits can be reduced in federal bankruptcy court.
If they support the plan, police and fire retirees would see a 6 percent cut and lose cost-of-living adjustments. General retiree pensions would be cut 26 percent along with elimination of cost-of-living increases, according to the plan.
Those behind Tuesday’s two-hour demonstration say it’s one in a series planned to shift the paradigm from the needs of bankers to the needs of residents and city pensioners.
More than a dozen retirees and active workers who participated in the rally also filed objections to the plan and it’s accompanying disclosure statement.
Retiree Raphael W. Robinson was among those who filed in opposition, arguing to U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes that the plan is “criminal” and will reduce him and other retirees “to below poverty conditions.”
“This plan is inhumane and undemocratic to put it mildly,” Robinson wrote in his objection entered Tuesday. “…we worked, paid into a system and planned so we could have and maintain a decent, respectful and humane quality of life for our families and ourselves.”
“The city of Detroit’s Plan of Adjustment is a genocide plan,” he added.
Resident Michelle George also entered an objection, a right, she wrote, she’s entitled to as a lifelong Detroiter.
“Citizens in Detroit have paid into their pensions for years,” she wrote. “They have a right to what is due to them.”
cferretti@detroitnews.com
(313) 222-206
From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20140401/METRO01/304010097#ixzz2xnZlcRkq
Detroit retirees protest pension cuts: 'We're just everyday people'
12:12 PM, April 1, 2014
By Matt Helms
Detroit Free Press Staff Writer
Hundreds of Detroit retirees and supporters rallied this morning outside federal court downtown to protest cuts to pension benefits that they say will cripple people of modest means.
The protesters urged retirees to reject the city’s proposal to cut General Retirement System pension checks by up to 34% and the Police and Fire Retirement System pension checks by up to 14%. With a proposed end to cost of living adjustments, the retirees say the cuts are even more severe, coupled with dramatic cuts to health care benefits for retired and current city workers.
“They’ve taken our health care coverage from the retirees,” said Michael Smith, a retired city bus driver who lives in Redford Township. “Behind that, they want to take a third of my pension. Quite naturally it’s going to be awfully difficult for not just me but anybody to survive off one-third of your money being cut.”
He added that he hoped to send a message to Detroit emergency manager Kevyn Orr, Gov. Rick Snyder and others that the cuts will mean devastation for “real people. We’re not the banks. We’re just everyday people.”
Protesters carried signs saying “Stop the Legal Looting of Detroit” and “Bail out people, not banks.”
It was among the largest protests yet by pensioners — about 300 participants — and it came as Orr ramps up pressure on retiree groups and unions to accept the cuts or risk even steeper reductions.
Under a so-called grand bargain designed to shield the Detroit Institute of Arts and its assets, private foundations, the state of Michigan and the DIA itself have pledged $815 million that would be earmarked to reduce pension cuts. The deal would spin off the DIA from city ownership to a private nonprofit entity.
Orr has told retirees that the DIA-pension deal significantly reduces cuts to pensioners, and that if they don’t agree to accept the deal, pensioners could face even steeper reductions.
The protest also came a day after Orr’s bankruptcy team filed an amended bankruptcy restructuring plan that calls for a major overhaul of pension fund management, including appointing trustee boards to oversee each of the retirement funds.
Ed McNeil, a special assistant to the president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 25, the city’s largest labor union, spoke out against the proposal that also would get rid of union appointees to pension fund boards, saying the state’s goal from the beginning was to take over the pension funds and gain control of its assets.
He said retirees and city workers are bearing the brunt of the cuts in bankruptcy, and they’re the ones who can least afford benefit reductions.
“Everybody just may as well move to the cemetery and just open up a coffin and lay down — that’s what they want you to do,” McNeil said. “But we’re not going to let that happen. We’re going to stand up. We’re going to continue to fight.”
Contact Matt Helms: 313-222-1450 or mhelms@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter: @matthelms
Abayomi Azikiwe, PANW Editor, Quoted in Detroit News: 'Retirees, Residents Protest Detroit's Debt-cutting Plan'
 |
| Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African News Wire, with Ezza outside the federal courthouse in downtown Detroit on April 1, 2014. (Photo: Valerie Jean) |
The Detroit News
Detroit — Residents, activists and retirees rallied outside the federal courthouse on Tuesday to react and file objections to the city’s amended debt-cutting bankruptcy plan.
The newest plan, filed late Monday, recommends steeper cuts to retiree pensions unless retirees support a restructuring plan that includes a proposed pot of millions to protect the Detroit Institute of Arts from creditors.
“They are trying to intimidate retirees, workers and the residents of the city of Detroit,” Abayomi Azikiwe, a 47-year resident and activist with Moratorium Now, said following the morning protest that drew several hundred. “It’s shameful.”
Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr’s latest plan recommends an increase in the pension cuts facing retired police and firefighters if they resist the $816 million plan to shore up pensions and shield the DIA collection from a fire sale. The proposal bumps a 10 percent proposed cut to 14 percent of their monthly pension if they decline to settle. Orr plan proposes a cut of up to 34 percent for the pensions of retired non-uniform city workers.
“You might as well find me a cardboard box to live in now,” said David Sole, a retiree being represented in the city’s bankruptcy case, in reaction to Orr’s plan.
Orr, however, in a statement Monday called the plan “feasible” and notes that it allows the city to reduce its $18 billion in debt, live within its means and focus on essential public services.
The recommended pension cuts could be softened, if retirees vote in favor of Orr’s plan and agree to drop an appeal of a bankruptcy judge’s ruling in December that vested pension benefits can be reduced in federal bankruptcy court.
If they support the plan, police and fire retirees would see a 6 percent cut and lose cost-of-living adjustments. General retiree pensions would be cut 26 percent along with elimination of cost-of-living increases, according to the plan.
Those behind Tuesday’s two-hour demonstration say it’s one in a series planned to shift the paradigm from the needs of bankers to the needs of residents and city pensioners.
More than a dozen retirees and active workers who participated in the rally also filed objections to the plan and it’s accompanying disclosure statement.
Retiree Raphael W. Robinson was among those who filed in opposition, arguing to U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes that the plan is “criminal” and will reduce him and other retirees “to below poverty conditions.”
“This plan is inhumane and undemocratic to put it mildly,” Robinson wrote in his objection entered Tuesday. “…we worked, paid into a system and planned so we could have and maintain a decent, respectful and humane quality of life for our families and ourselves.”
“The city of Detroit’s Plan of Adjustment is a genocide plan,” he added.
Resident Michelle George also entered an objection, a right, she wrote, she’s entitled to as a lifelong Detroiter.
“Citizens in Detroit have paid into their pensions for years,” she wrote. “They have a right to what is due to them.”
cferretti@detroitnews.com
(313) 222-206
From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20140401/METRO01/304010097#ixzz2xnZlcRkq
Detroit retirees protest pension cuts: 'We're just everyday people'
12:12 PM, April 1, 2014
By Matt Helms
Detroit Free Press Staff Writer
Hundreds of Detroit retirees and supporters rallied this morning outside federal court downtown to protest cuts to pension benefits that they say will cripple people of modest means.
The protesters urged retirees to reject the city’s proposal to cut General Retirement System pension checks by up to 34% and the Police and Fire Retirement System pension checks by up to 14%. With a proposed end to cost of living adjustments, the retirees say the cuts are even more severe, coupled with dramatic cuts to health care benefits for retired and current city workers.
“They’ve taken our health care coverage from the retirees,” said Michael Smith, a retired city bus driver who lives in Redford Township. “Behind that, they want to take a third of my pension. Quite naturally it’s going to be awfully difficult for not just me but anybody to survive off one-third of your money being cut.”
He added that he hoped to send a message to Detroit emergency manager Kevyn Orr, Gov. Rick Snyder and others that the cuts will mean devastation for “real people. We’re not the banks. We’re just everyday people.”
Protesters carried signs saying “Stop the Legal Looting of Detroit” and “Bail out people, not banks.”
It was among the largest protests yet by pensioners — about 300 participants — and it came as Orr ramps up pressure on retiree groups and unions to accept the cuts or risk even steeper reductions.
Under a so-called grand bargain designed to shield the Detroit Institute of Arts and its assets, private foundations, the state of Michigan and the DIA itself have pledged $815 million that would be earmarked to reduce pension cuts. The deal would spin off the DIA from city ownership to a private nonprofit entity.
Orr has told retirees that the DIA-pension deal significantly reduces cuts to pensioners, and that if they don’t agree to accept the deal, pensioners could face even steeper reductions.
The protest also came a day after Orr’s bankruptcy team filed an amended bankruptcy restructuring plan that calls for a major overhaul of pension fund management, including appointing trustee boards to oversee each of the retirement funds.
Ed McNeil, a special assistant to the president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 25, the city’s largest labor union, spoke out against the proposal that also would get rid of union appointees to pension fund boards, saying the state’s goal from the beginning was to take over the pension funds and gain control of its assets.
He said retirees and city workers are bearing the brunt of the cuts in bankruptcy, and they’re the ones who can least afford benefit reductions.
“Everybody just may as well move to the cemetery and just open up a coffin and lay down — that’s what they want you to do,” McNeil said. “But we’re not going to let that happen. We’re going to stand up. We’re going to continue to fight.”
Contact Matt Helms: 313-222-1450 or mhelms@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter: @matthelms
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