Detroit

Compiled by x344543 - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, April 14, 2015

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

The following news items feature issues, discussions, campaigns, or information potentially relevant to green unionists:

Lead Stories:

• 4/18 March and Rally: Workers Memorial Day 2015 Remember The Dead and Fight for The Injured & Fight TPP - Transport Workers Solidarity Committee, April 13, 2015
• Fields of Toxic Pesticides Surround the Schools of Ventura County—Are They Poisoning the Students?; In some of California’s most heavily Latino communities, going to school can be a health hazard - By Christina Sarich, The Nation, April 6, 2015
• Monsanto Employee Admits an Entire Department Exists to “Discredit” Scientists; But no one knows about it - By Christina Sarich, Natural Society, April 6, 2015

May Day:

• Boston Mayday 2015! - Boston IWW, April 13, 2015
• Chicago May Day 2015 Schedule of Events & Official Posters - Chicago IWW, April 13, 2015
• May Day #Shut It Down Assembly (Bay Area) - Leaflet (not affiliated with any organization)

An Injury to One is an Injury to All:

• Harmony halts operations at Unisel mine after fatal incident - By Cecilia Jamasmie, Mining.Com, April 7, 2015
• New Evidence BP’s Spill Dispersant Caused Harm to Humans and Wildlife - By Andy Rowell, Oil Change International, April 7, 2015
• Union warnings ignored as rotten rail signal collapses - By RMT Press Office, RMT, April 8, 2015
• Workers now out after being trapped by fire in Manitoba mine - CBC News, April 6, 2015
• Workers strike at Anglo’s coal mine in South Africa - By Cecilia Jamasmie, Mining.Com, April 8, 2015

USW Refinery Strike:

• United Steelworkers reviewing contract proposal from Marathon Petroleum - By L.M. Sixel, FuelFix, April 7, 2015
• Union workers vote to end strike - By Mark Maynard, The Independent, April 6, 2015

Carbon Bubble:

• Noble Energy cuts 220 jobs - By Rhiannon Meyers, FuelFix, April 7, 2015
• Two coal plants in Ohio part of AEP closings - By Nick Mullins, The Thoughtful Coal Miner, April 8, 2015
• Wages for oil and gas workers are growing the slowest of any industry - By Ryan Holeywell, FuelFix, April 9, 2015

Just Transition:

• Australian Renewable Energy Industry Loses 2,300 Jobs, Labor Calls Abbott To Swallow His Pride - By Joshua S Hill, Clean Technica, April 13, 2015
• Coal Jobs Decline As Renewable Jobs Increase - By Joshua S Hill, Clean Technica, April 8, 2015
• European federation of Public Services Unions joins TUED - Trade Unions for Energy Democracy, April 8, 2015

1267-Watch:

• Sued by engineer of train that exploded, BNSF says it may be shielded by federal law - By Adrian Glass-Moore, WDAZ 8 ABC, April 12, 2015

Bread and Roses:

• Detroit Needs Water to Work - By Justin Wedes, Detroit Water Brigade, April 13, 2015
• Saving Seeds: Farmers Rise Up Against Industry-Backed Laws; New publication by Grain and La Via Campesina documents nefarious ways new laws criminalize seed sharing and the growing peasant movement resisting them - By Lauren McCauley, Common Dreams, April 8, 2015

Other News:

• Chevron Whistleblower Videos Show Deliberate Falsification Of Evidence In Ecuador Oil Pollution Trial - By Mike Gaworecki, DeSmog Blog, April 9, 2015
• Mass Extinction: Is the Enemy Us? - By Umair Muhammad, Great Transition Initiative, February 2015
• Oiling The Machinery Of Climate Change Denial And Transit Opposition - By David Suzuki, DeSmog Blog, April 7, 2015
• What If Uber Were a Unionized, Worker-Owned Co-Op? These Denver Cabbies Are Making It Happen - By Erin McCarley, Yes!, April 10, 2015

For more green news, please visit our news feeds section on ecology.iww.org; Twitter #IWWEUC

By Karen Doerer - American Prospect, August 6, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

In Michigan’s largest city, a water crisis has been raging for months. Since spring, 17,000 city residents have had their water shut off by the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) for unpaid water bills. Now living in unsanitary conditions, citizens in homes without running water can’t even flush a toilet. Deemed by public health officials to be living in inadequate conditions, many parents in homes without water are sending their children to live with family or friends for fear of losing their sons and daughters to Child Protection Services. For the elderly and the ill, lack of home access to water can be fatal.

Last week, after weeks of negative news coverage, Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr relinquished control of the debt-laden Detroit Water and Sewerage Department—described by one activist as “a hot mess”—to Mayor Mike Duggan. Now, as Duggan tries to manage DWSD’s nearly $6 billion debt and much-despised water shut-off policy, he has extended a moratorium on water shut-offs and is expected to announce a new plan on Thursday for collecting past-due payments from residential customers.

Surrounded by the Great Lakes, home to 20 percent of the world’s fresh water, Detroit faces a crisis that is not only paradoxical; it’s complicated by the city’s bankruptcy. That didn’t stop the U.N. from calling the water shut-offs a violation of human rights.

While DWSD claims to offer assistance to residents who have difficulty paying bills, these assistance programs merely postpone water customers’ payments without offering any reduction. The plan to shut off water to roughly 40 percent of Detroit’s residents was delayed on July 21 and again on August 4, but so far no definitive solution to the problem has been tried.

Whether Detroit stands better off today than when Orr ran DWSD a week ago has yet to be seen. Some label the leadership transition as a partial victory for Detroit residents, suggesting that amid protests and national media attention, Orr folded to criticism and returned control of DWSD to a democratically elected official. (In a controversial move, Orr waa appointed to his position in March 2013 by Governor Rick Snyder, as the city teetered on the brink of financial collapse. Orr, a corporate bankruptcy lawyer, has overseen Detroit’s filing for bankruptcy protection.) Others are more skeptical, wondering if Orr just handed off the mess of DWSD’s debt to Duggan, or whether the move is part of a bigger plan to privatize the water system.

By Ben Ptashnik and Victoria Collier - The Progressive, July 8, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

Oh, make you wanna holler
The way they do my life
This ain’t livin’, this ain’t livin’
No, no baby, this ain’t livin’
No, no, no, no

–Marvin Gaye, “Inner City Blues”

On July 18 thousands of activists and dozens of organizations will converge on downtown Detroit to protest the privatization of the city’s assets and the disconnection of water to tens of thousands of low-income residents. The UN has called the shutoff a human rights violation.  Demonstrators from around the country will rally in Hart Plaza at 1 pm, linking arms with the citizens of Detroit to protest the hostile corporate takeover by Wall Street banks and their ALEC-led political allies in the Michigan Statehouse, including Governor Rick Snyder.

July 18 marks the one-year anniversary of the announcement by Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr that Detroit must file for bankruptcy—a decision that County Judge Rosemarie Aquilina immediately ruled violates the Michigan Constitution and state law and must be withdrawn. “I have some very serious concerns because there was this rush to bankruptcy court that didn’t have to occur and shouldn’t have occurred,” Aquilina stated.  Orr and Snyder managed to circumvent her ruling, and the bankruptcy proceeded. The next few months will determine how successful they will be.

On July 4 the activist community of Detroit put out this call to action:

“We call on activists everywhere to come to Detroit on Friday, July 18th, for a rally and march to fight the dictatorship of emergency manager Kevyn Orr, appointed by millionaire Republican Governor Rick Snyder, and backed by Wall Street bankers and the 1 percent.  Under a state-imposed bankruptcy, the City of Detroit workers face severe cuts to their pensions and tens of thousand people face water shut-offs.

“The banks, which have destroyed Detroit’s neighborhoods through racist predatory sub-prime mortgages and saddled the city of Detroit with fraudulent financing, continue to loot the people of Detroit.

Detroiters have lost their democratic rights – ‘elected’ officials serve at the pleasure of the unelected Emergency Manager – and may be fired at any time.”

– Detroit Moratorium Now and Freedom Fridays Coalition

By Carl Gibson - Occupy.Com, July 11, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

“Your human dignity shouldn’t be truncated because you’re priced out of the commodification of an essential resource.“ - Charity Hicks

By Juston Wedes - The Ecologist, July 4, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

The waves of the Detroit River lap up onto the wall of the riverwalk downtown, and young children play in the fountains that shoot up through the concrete in the park below the towering Renaissance Center.

It is Saturday in Motown, and the sun is shining warm rays down on working-class folk enjoying a day of rest.

Just a few miles away, on the east side across the highway, Jean stands on her porch and worries about the pregnant mom whose water was shut off Thursday morning by Homrich contractors working for the City of Detroit under emergency financial management.

Water is a human right. Oh yeah?

They came that morning in a red pickup truck with a homemade decal on the side. In an arc around a circle it read "DETROIT WATER COLLECTION PROJECT" - quite official-looking - and inside the circle it read "WATER ****** HOMRICH".

The asterisks representing a scribbled out word "SHUTOFF" that was removed after community protests about shaming neighborhood residents.

Jean came yesterday to the weekly, growing Freedom Fridays rallies at the Detroit Water and Sewerage Dept (DWSD) to voice her outrage at seeing a pregnant mother and young children denied the basic human right to water in a city surrounded by the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth, containing 21% of the world's surface fresh water.

Her voice faltered as she worked to hold back tears on the megaphone. Her tone was one part desperation and one part pure rage, a rage that is simmering with the summer heat and the threat of over 100,000 family water shutoffs in the hot months ahead.