Detroit bankruptcy filing paves the way for assault on workers
Flashback: Obama 2012: 'We refused to let Detroit go bankrupt'.
■ “It is pitiful,” said Barbara, a retiree who has lived in the city for eleven years. “I have never seen anything like it. The reason they are doing the bankruptcy to me, boils down to the people who are running the city, the politicians and the rich business people. They are stealing the money.”
■ She was especially angry about the contrast between the vast investments and public subsidies for upscale downtown development and the savage attack on working class living conditions and city services. “They just take, take, take, take,” she continued. “They never do anything for the city. They want to build up the downtown and let the rest of us starve. How can we stand it?. They have been doing the same thing for 60 years, but it is just now coming to a head.”
■ “Coleman Young was doing the same thing and the white mayor that was in office before him. They all do it. They are just for the rich people— white, black, or whatever. Race does not matter. They want Detroit to be just for the rich. They want us, the working people who have lived here all of our lives, to move out. That’s all it is.”
Michigan Republican Governor Rick Snyder and Kevyn Orr, the emergency manager overseeing the financial restructuring of Detroit, defended their decision to force the city into Chapter 9 bankruptcy at a press conference Friday. The bankruptcy of Detroit, a city of 700,000 people, is the largest municipal bankruptcy in US history. It sets the stage for draconian attacks on workers and pensioners, the gutting of what remains of city services, and the sell-off of public assets to pay creditors. The events in Detroit are being watched by local governments across the United States and will set a precedent for a nationwide assault on the pensions of public sector workers.
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