Majority African-American city fights state takeover

A new round of political assaults has been launched against the people of Detroit with a threat by the state to impose a “consent agreement” on both the mayor and the City Council. Two drafts of such a document have been released to the public and sent to Mayor Dave Bing as well as the nine-member City Council.

The consent agreement leaked on March 13 mandates the creation of a parallel nine-member “Financial Advisory Board” (FAB), which would take over full operations of the administrative and decision-making capacity of elected city officials. This board, to be appointed by conservative Gov. Rick Snyder and totally unaccountable to the city’s existing elected representatives, is charged to enact draconian measures aimed at ensuring the full payment of usurious debt service to the financial institutions, under threat of default.

Other instruments of authority embodied in the FAB include the right to nullify labor and vendor contracts, the termination of workers and managers, the privatization of city services and the auctioning off of municipal assets. The $6 billion in workers’ pension funds would be subject to seizure and “reinvestment,” along with the outright theft of deferred wages in the form of unused sick days and vacation time.

Detroit responds with anger & outrage

Word of the consent agreement surfaced the evening of March 12. This new initiative on the part of Gov. Snyder immediately sparked widespread comment among city residents.

Debra Taylor, community activist and organizer for the group “We the People,” wrote on Facebook that the city’s acceptance of such an obligation would be tantamount to a return to “sharecropping.” On the following day, the Detroit City Council was flooded with requests for public comment.

Members and leaders of municipal unions and community organizations staunchly denounced the draft consent agreements. Attorney Jerome Goldberg, an organizer of the Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures, Evictions and Utility Shutoffs, said that the city government should go after the hundreds of millions of dollars owed to Detroit by the state.

City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson has consistently raised the failure of the state government to make good on a revenue-sharing agreement that, if paid, would provide more than $550 million to Detroit. Addressing the City Council, Goldberg stressed that “it is the banks which have driven hundreds of thousands of people out of the city.” He noted that a moratorium on debt service payments to the financial institutions would provide much needed relief to this beleaguered city.

Even Mayor Bing, who was favored in the last election by the corporate community due to his business background, rejected the proposed consent agreement. Bing said he was handed the 21-page draft agreement by representatives of the governor and told that he had one hour to sign it.

Bing told a crowd of hundreds of students and community people at Wayne County Community College Downtown on March 13: “Hell no, under no circumstances would I sign such an agreement. I was elected to work for the people of Detroit, not Gov. Snyder.”

Bing has been in negotiations with municipal unions for several months over “cost-cutting measures.” No agreement has been reached and no vote has taken place among rank-and-file members.

Ruling class vs. people’s opposition

The draft consent agreement is the response of the bankers and bosses to the months-long struggle of people in the city and around the state against Public Act 4, referred to as the “Emergency Manager Law.” This bill, passed one year ago by the State Legislature, usurps local authority in the interests of corporate power.

There has been widespread rejection of Public Act 4. Mass meetings and a statewide petition drive that collected 226,000 signatures are aimed at repealing the “dictator law.” A number of lawsuits have been filed on behalf of Michigan residents challenging its constitutionality.

The signing of a consent agreement mandating cuts and other austerity measures would be merely a cover for the eventual appointment of an emergency manager with total power to implement drastic political and economic policy without the involvement of the population, elected officials or unions.

If the petition signatures are ratified by the secretary of state, that would nullify the existing law and lead to a ballot referendum in November. Immediately after ratification of the petition signatures, lawyers for opponents of Public Act 4 would seek an order removing all emergency managers who have already been imposed on the cities of Flint, Pontiac, Ecorse, Benton Harbor and possibly Inkster.

Contradictions within capitalist democracy

These maneuvers by the state government illustrate the contradictions within this bourgeois democratic system. Even though the threat of consent agreements and emergency management has been challenged in the courts and through state-approved petitions, the ruling class through its agents in Lansing, the state capital, are determined to thwart the will of the people.

The imposition of emergency management and consent agreements has nothing to do with improving the finances of distressed cities. These measures will not restore municipal jobs and salaries, public lighting, transportation, quality education and affordable housing, or protect worker pensions.

In fact, these are instruments of the ruling class designed to take back the concessions workers have gained through decades of struggle. This is why the people of Detroit have an inherent mistrust of such actions.

If the existing methods of resistance to the onslaught of austerity are overlooked and subverted by the surrogates of capital, new and more militant actions will come into being.