Michigan PWW Update

Detroit: Keeping families together highlights need for immigration reform

http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/15199/

Where your tax dollars go

In Detroit, for example, the median-income family paid $1,306 in federal income taxes for 2008. Of that, $487 went to military spending including military interest on debt, while a puny $50 went to housing and community programs, $50 to veteran’s needs, and $39 to education. Read more:

http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/15178/

African American leaders: employee free choice is the civil rights issue of the century

http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/15201/

A Michigan PWW Editorial: A Way Forward

As Governor Granholm said last week, Michigan is facing a Katrina like disaster - but on an even greater scale. Unlike the botched job the Bush administration did in the days after the hurricane struck, we can prepare in advance to lesson the impact of the economic tsunami bearing down on Detroit and Michigan.

In the past “restructuring” has usually meant shutting down production in the U.S., laying off workers and squeezing those remaining for more concessions. That can no longer be the case. Their purchasing power is fundamental to stimulating the economy. Union wages, not a Wal-mart economy, are the way to end the depression.

There is a way forward for the auto industry and Michigan.

Cities throughout the country have multi-year waiting lists for mass transit vehicles — because so few are domestically built. The auto task force should mandate the retooling of any plant scheduled to close to build such vehicles along with wind turbines, solar panels, and other energy saving products needed to reduce climate change.

Retooled plants could produce the many products needed to rebuild our infrastructure. But if necessary, it is the responsibility of government to run them to insure workers have jobs and that an economic and social catastrophe does not take place.

As opposed to our previous president, we now have a president who sincerely wants to help working people. But President Obama by himself cannot bring progressive change.

For that help to become reality, we “the people” need to voice our support and fight for a recovery and restructuring program that benefits main street, not Wall Street.

We need to demand that our plants stay open and that national health care become a reality. And we must see that the Employee Free Choice Act is passed. This act will both democratize our nation and restructure our economy by insuring that working people are no longer left out of the decision making process.

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