Recent Activities: Michigan
In February, JLC Michigan Regional Director Selma Goode was asked by the President of the Detroit City Council to serve on the Community Advisory Committee of the new Health Authority for Detroit; a key focus has been on providing medical care for the uninsured. Michigan JLC works with the Michigan Universal Health Care Network (MichUCAN); in October, MichUCAN held a forum with Congressman John Conyers on the medical coverage crisis. The event, co-hosted with Local 6000, UAW and the Labor Party, brought together over 200 people.
This year, Michigan JLC has participated in number of demonstrations in support of workers’ rights. In March, we marched in support of Detroit city workers, represented by AFSCME, to protest laying off hundreds of city workers, as well as curtailing all midnight - 5 a.m. bus service. In May, Michigan JLC joined a UNITE HERE demonstration at a new restaurant in downtown Detroit that refuses to bargain with its workers. Also mid-year, we participated in a demonstration by the five unions representing public school personnel to register our opposition to what were described as “enormous” lay-offs scheduled by the CEO of the school system. [Detroit's city government has no say in how the schools are run.] Michigan JLC works with the Action Coalition of Strikers and Supporters (ACOSS), which this May was planning a 10th anniversary commemoration of the newspaper strike/lockout in combination with a benefit for the Youngstown, OH newspaper workers “who have been on strike for some time now.” In October, Michigan JLC was there again, when ACOSS, in conjunction with Local 174, UAW, participated in a car caravan and dinner in support of mechanics on strike at Northwest Airlines. When a new cleaning firm began work in a large building in downtown and laid off several janitors, the Service Employees International Union held a rally – and Michigan JLC was there.
On April 18th, the Michigan JLC held a Labor Seder at Congregation Beth Shalom. Attendees included the president of the Michigan Federation of Teachers and School-Related Personnel, representatives from UNITE HERE, the secretary-treasurer of the Michigan AFL-CIO, a representative of the Jewish Community Council, a business agent from the Operating Engineers, the chair and director of the Michigan Workmen’s Circle/Arbeter Ring, a representative of the local Interfaith Coalition on Worker Issues, and the president of the Michigan Ameinu [formerly Labor Zionist Alliance].
In August, in the middle of Hillel Day School contract negotiations, and four days after the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled that another parochial school did not have to comply with a Michigan Employment Relations Commission ruling that allowed its teachers to vote on unionizing, the management at Detroit’s community-supported Hillel Day School announced it was withdrawing recognition of the teachers’ union and ended contract negotiations. The Hillel Day School teachers have had union affiliation for 40 years. The teachers – one-third of whom were new hires – were told by management to sign individual one-year contracts, and give up their collective bargaining rights. Michigan JLC has been meeting with several of the teachers, and working on enlisting the help of elected officials and in the Jewish community and the community-at-large supportive of the teachers’ effort to get the school management to voluntarily recognize the union. Additional activities included a full-page ad in the Detroit Jewish News, and soliciting letters sent to the press.
Michigan JLC is an affiliate of the Detroit Interfaith Committee on Worker Issues, has been involved fo some time in a local Sweat-Free Campaign. We are working with high school students who are organizing campaigns in two Catholic schools and one public school to adopt sweat free purchasing policies.