Synderville at Michigan Welfare Rights Association protest across from Cadillac Place Sept. 29
Rainbow PUSH mingles with protesters, auto execs, refuses call for Michigan boycott
“Occupy Detroit” meeting Mon. Oct. 10 could pave way for direct action
Unions must use “economic clout” to support the poor, confront system
By Diane Bukowski
Oct. 7, 2011
Troy Davis, executed despite worldwide protests on Sept. 21 by fascist state of Georgia
DETROIT – To date, more than 50,000 Michigan individuals including children remain in limbo regarding whether their public assistance benefits providing shelter, utilities, food and the other necessities of life will be summarily executed, as was Georgia’s Troy Davis on Sept. 21.
U.S. District Court Judge Paul Borman temporarily suspended the assistance cut-off Oct. 4, opening a window of opportunity. On Monday, Oct. 10 at 7 p.m., organizers of “Occupy Detroit” will meet Mon. Oct. 10 from 7-9 p.m. at the Spirit of Hope Church, 1519 Martin Luther King Blvd. to plan how they will join millions of others across the U.S. who are part of the “Occupy Wall Street” movement, targeting the true source of this genocidal assault on poor and working people here and abroad.
DHS Director Maura Corrigan and counterpart
Borman upheld claims by the Center for Civil Justice (CCJ) that Maura Corrigan, Director of the State’s Department of Human Services, violated recipients’ right to due process under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
“The Sept. 11, 2011 Notice failed to provide FIP [Family Independence Program] Benefit recipients with ‘a detailed statement of the intended action, the reason for the change in status, citation to the specific statutory section requiring reduction or termination, and specific notice of the recipient’s right to appeal,” Borman ruled.
Protest at Cadillac Place against benefit cuts, called by MWRO, Sept. 29
In fact, according to the plaintiffs, the state did not publish the policy, BEM 234 (click on Benefits BEM 234 to read policy) applicable to the cut-offs to anyone, including its own workers, until Oct. 1. Those workers were required to try to make contact with clients at least three times to explain the benefits cut. DHS sent out three separate notices based on what the CCJ called a “secret policy.”
“We are very, very pleased that the court recognizes the important issues and is willing to protect all children and families that did not have adequate notice,” Attorney Jacqueline Doig of the Saginaw-based Center for Civil Justice, which brought the suit on behalf of three individual plaintiffs, said. (Click on Benefits lawsuit, and Benefits motion for TRO and brief to read pertinent documents.)
Rev. Jesse Jackson refused to call for boycott of Michigan businesses despite mass murder of the poor in the works.
Judge Borman certified the complaint as a class action covering all affected individuals in Michigan, and appointed CCJ as their legal representatives.
However, he did not take jurisdiction in Count II of the complaint. Doig said they would decide whether to pursue state court relief after consultation with their clients.
In that section, the plaintiffs cited the state’s notice claiming they had surpassed the federal 60 month time limit, set in 1996 with the creation of the federal Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program. That legislation, signed by then President Bill Clinton as part of his “Welfare Reform” program, for the first time in 60 years set lifetime time limits and work requirements for public aid. However, it left several exemptions possible and also allowed the states to continue providing assistance through their own state funding after the 60-month limit expired.
Michigan has provided benefits using both TANF and state FIP funds since 1996.
Sept. 29 MWRO protest
The plaintiffs did not challenge the 48-month time limit set by the legislature in August under the Michigan Social Welfare Act. They said instead that the state never bothered to calculate the number of months victims of the expected Oct. 1 cut-off had received under FIP, and that many had not reached the 48-month limit. They said the state had no authority to cut benefits using a federal statute.
Earlier, hundreds demonstrated Sept. 29 outside Cadillac Place, which houses Michigan Governor Rick Snyder’s Detroit office. The Michigan Welfare Rights Organization has sponsored the weekly Thursday demonstrations, during which protesters have demanded, “Tax the Rich, Not the Poor.” They carried signs which declared the benefits cuts “Mass Murder” and “Execution of the Poor.”
Banks, Snyder guilty of mass murder
This time, they temporarily set up a “Snyderville” tent on the West Grand Blvd. median, portending a possible round-the-clock occupation which, however, has not yet taken place.
Rev. Jesse Jackson of Rainbow PUSH attended this and other protests that week, along with Michigan Rainbow PUSH director the Rev. David Bullock, U.S. Congressman John Conyers and others.
Jackson then stuck around for his organization’s Global Automotive and Energy Summit at MGM Grand Casino the following week, Oct. 5 and 6. It featured “executives, entrepreneurs, suppliers, dealers, consumers, government and elected officials, automotive manufacturers, energy representatives and others . . . to discuss strengthening the automotive industry, changing trends, and creating opportunities,” according to the Rainbow PUSH website.
VOD asked Jackson and U.S Representative John Conyers if they would call for a boycott of Michigan businesses and convention centers until public assistance recipients are restored to the rolls, as supporters of Troy Davis, executed Sept. 28, have called for a boycott of Georgia.
Both reacted with a horrified, resounding “NO.” They said an “economic recovery” was underway, despite evidence to the contrary all around them in the neighborhoods of Detroit. All over the world, markets are teetering on the brink of collapse. (Click on THE EUROZONE CRISIS to read more on this matter.)
Like Jackson and Conyers, the United Auto Workers and other unions in this country have not stepped to the plate to take direct action as have Greek workers, who went out on a national strike are doing. (See photo below.) Instead, the UAW is negotiating contracts that ensure labor peace without pay raises, and that threaten retiree benefits and other hard-won gains.
UAW President Bob King has prided himself on joining forces with the poor to demand “social welfare” for all, taking part in boycotts of Chase Bank and demanding an end to the foreclosures which have brought the country to the brink of economic disaster. Earlier this year, VOD asked him when he would marshal the “economic clout” of his membership to take these battles on, but he skirted the question.
The union movement was born amid hunger marches, sit-downs and a mass movement of the people that declared, in the words the UAW anthem Solidarity Forever:
“They have taken untold millions that they never toiled to earn, but without our brain and muscle not a single wheel can turn. We can break their haughty power, gain our freedom when we learn that the union makes us strong. In our hands is placed a power greater than their hoarded gold, greater than the might of atoms magnified a thousand-fold. We can bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old, for the union makes us strong.”
The union movement was never meant to maintain labor peace as the capitalist system collapsed, but to organize the workers and poor people to take power. NOW IS THE TIME.
Below is a video of Pete Seeger singing “Solidarity Forever.” Also note Woody Guthrie’s “All You Fascists Bound to Lose.”
Now listen to Keith Olbermann read the “Occupy Wall Street” organizing statement, recently drafted and published.
