Detroit: A 15-year record of decay under Democrats

Scan page 4

learn from.

Local 26, representing more than 3000 workers, had promised to shut down the employers' operations at a time when the hotels were to be booked solid and national attention would be focused on the League of Cities convention here.

Local 26 promised militant action to guarantee that no scabs could be brought in to take their jobs. They made the bosses fear the consequences, and it won them a just contract.

The union mobilized its membership around their demands, just as it did in 1982 and 1985. That's the way this union has functioned since 1981, when Domenic Bozzotto won the local presidency. His campaign targeted the so-called "back of the house"-housekeepers, cooks, dishwashers— many of whom are immigrants from Third World countries. Today Local 26 is half women and 55 percent people of color.

What they won Hotel workers are still among some of the lowest paid in the city. Their average annual income is $16,000. But they have consistently demanded and won wage increases and benefits that other unions have been giving up throughout the 1980s. This time around, the union won a 16-percent pay raise over three years, turning back owners' Boston contractors lose on prevailing wage law In our November 1988 issue, Michael Kooper reported that scab construction companies in Massachusetts were attempting to repeal the state's prevailing wage law by means of a referendum on the ballot.

The labor movement campaigned to uphold the law-which requires that state and local governments pay union-scale wages and benefits to workers on all public construction jobs. We are pleased to report that in the November election, voters overwhelmingly defeated the employers' proposal.

4 SOCIALIST ACTION By KEVIN DETROIT-In the heart of this city, the Motor City, Motown, a sudden misstep could cause a pheasant to explode out of the brush and rubble. This great metropolis has begun to shelter the animals of field and woodland once again.

This advanced decay has progressed for the last 15 years under the administration of Mayor Coleman Young, one of the most prominent of the Black liberal Democrats.

In 1973, when Young was first elected, he represented the hopes of Blacks for an end to their oppression and poverty. Based on his record as a militant in the labor and civil rights movements, (with a long connection to the Communist Party), Young swept aside the officially designated white liberal candidate in the primary. In the final election, Young defeated an openly racist opponent (the white chief of police).

What is the record?

For 15 years, Young has followed the path of the Democratic Party, wheeling and dealing with the robber barons of Detroit finance and industry. One real-estate swindle has followed another. Now there are just two auto assembly plants left in the city.

This liberal Democrat has practiced capitalist "trickle-down economics"—with the normal consequences of that policy-while denouncing Reagan for doing exactly the same thing.

In this overwhelmingly Black city (63.1 percent according to the 1980 census; now estimated at being close to 70 percent), Black unemployment was 30.7 percent in 1985, with the overall rate for the city in 1987 at 20.4 percent.

In 1969, in the wake of the rebellion of 1967, the percentage of those under the poverty line was 14.9. In 1979, after five years of Young's administration, (with his IANUARY 1989 "friend" Jimmy Carter in the White House), the figure had risen to 21.9 percent.

By 1984, poverty had almost doubled to a startling 42.8 percent.

Per-capita income in constant dollars dropped 12.8 percent in the 1969-83 period.

Finally, in 1987, the infant-mortality rate of the city stood at 20.3 (number of infants per 1000 live births who died before their first birthday). That is almost twice the rate of the United States as a whole. In 1985, the city's Black infant-mortality rate was 22.3.

"Throw the rascals out"

A change has begun among the voters that may foretell trouble for Young. In the August primary, 60 percent of the voters rejected Young's plan "to revive Detroit's economy" by bringing in casino gambling. Voters felt there was already no shortage of "job opportunities" in the fields of crime and prostitution.

In a "throw-the-rascals-out" mood, the electorate dumped the incumbents in the November school-board race—-all of whom Young had gone out of his way to support. The voters also rejected two tax increases and a bond issue for the convention center backed by Young.

In the November election, the Black voting rate was 54 percent, having declined from 63 percent in 1984. This was a sign of the lack of enthusiasm for Young's "friend" Dukakis. On the night of the election, Young sat slumped in a chair at the TV station where he was supposed to be an election analyst. Perhaps the analysis was all too clear!

Since then, Young has recovered enough to state that he intends to run again in 1989. Unfortunately, Blacks and working people remain hampered in mounting an effective opposition to the policies of Young and other Black liberal Democrats. No labor party (based on the unions and the oppressed) exists. Building such a party is essential in order to carry out an organized political fight. organizations: to speak at their rallies, and for support on the picket lines and in the demonstrations.

Local 26 has demonstrated, without having to strike, that even the threat of shutting down the employers' operations can win. And the bosses know that when the rank-and-file is involved in the contract struggle as they were in Local 26, they can't count on an easy coopting of the union leadership.

When it came down to deciding whether to precipitate a strike, the owners saw that the power of the union and their allies made it more trouble than it was worth.

Socialist Action Forums :

Boston 'U.S. Foreign Policy Toward Haiti Speakers:

Jean-Claude Martineau, auhor and playwright, noted Haitian activist; Isabel Prime, Haitian Student Association.

Sat. Jan. 14, 7:30 p.m. ambridge YWCA, 7 Temple St., Carr bridge, For more information, call (617)

497-0230.

Los Angeles:

'After the Elections: The Fight fo Women's Rights' Speaker: Sylvia Weinstein, 1988 socialist candidate in S.F. Jan. 20, 1988 L.A. City College, Franklin Hall, Rm. 101. 855 N. Vermont.