Wayne County, Mich., workers protest forced furloughs

On Feb. 4, hundreds of Wayne County workers protested forced weekly unpaid furlough days that were to begin the next day. This 20-percent pay cut will affect 700 selected workers, many making less than $30,000 per year, in a move designed to force workers and their union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, to accept an across-the-board 10-percent pay cut. Detroit city and school workers, who are fighting cuts in hours and benefits, joined the after-work picket.

City and county workers protest furloughs and budget cuts. WW photos: Cheryl LaBash

All levels of government point to reduced tax bases and revenue sharing from the federal government to justify imposing pay cuts, forced days off without pay, benefit cuts and drastically reduced pay and benefits for new hires. But shifting the crisis onto workers accelerates a downward spiral of reduced tax income, further constricting budgets.

Both Wayne County and Detroit have borrowed, using short-term budget stabilization bonds to cover budget shortfalls. Who did they borrow from? The very same banks and financial institutions that got bailed out by the federal government and that continue to profit from mortgage foreclosures and the cruel uprooting of millions of families. Workers are cut to pay the interest on these loans.

By expanding the public work force — not contracting it — the devastation of communities across the country can be stopped. In 1935, the Works Progress Administration began a real, public jobs program that put more than 8 million people to work. In Detroit, Western High School was constructed, miles of streets paved and sidewalks constructed, sewer and water mains built.

With unemployment nearly 50 percent in Detroit, the largest city in Wayne County, the emergency nature of this crisis is clearest and hits African-American and Latino/a youth even harder. The Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act, a law that says the government must provide jobs when private employers will not do so, is still on the books.

The money is there to do it. Cut the military budget that kills people in other lands while pumping profits into the military-industrial complex; cancel or suspend interest payments owed to the banks; or tax financial transactions. These measures could easily fund full employment and they need only an executive emergency order to implement. Who will fight for it?