Another Perspective: More Help for "Working People" and The Poor

Week of 6.19.09
Another Perspective: More Help for "Working People" and The Poor
By Abayomi Azikiwe
Abayomi Azikiwe, spokesperson for Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures and Evictions, talks about what he feels is irresponsible action by the government and corporations in regard to American employment and the poor. Moratorium NOW! held a protest rally—called "The People's Summit"—outside The National Summit, a conference of business CEOs and leaders which took place in Detroit June 15-17.

Over four million people have lost their jobs in the United States since December 2007 and more than two million people have lost their jobs since the beginning of this year. But neither the corporate community nor the American government have been able to respond to the deepening economic crisis by creating jobs for the unemployed and underemployed.

There are numerous factors involved in this apparent inability by multi-national corporations and the government to create jobs and provide other assistance to families suffering from home foreclosures, evictions, lack of health care and the evaporation of their savings and pension funds. Current policy imperatives of the ruling elites in this country favor the profit-making capacity of the financial sector and the most wealthy business people based in America and abroad. This is to the detriment of the interests of most working people and the poor.

The assumption is that if these banks and firms prosper, the benefits will flow downward to the workers in the form of lucrative employment and social benefits. However, this theory has been totally discredited through the lowering of real wages, the rise in joblessness, underemployment and the widening income gap between working people and the rich.

Many corporations have decided to go to areas of the country and the world where they can more freely exploit workers and consequently reap higher profits. When this system faced collapse during the fall of 2008, U.S. taxpayers were forced to bailout the very same financiers, insurance providers and automotive companies who had engineered the crisis. The collapse resulted in the worst loss of financial wealth since the Great Depression.

There must be a restructuring of national priorities in the United States. The $10 trillion in public funds and Federal Reserve-induced liquidity that was utilized to ostensibly prevent a full economic meltdown in 2008 could have easily been invested in government programs to create millions of jobs in the U.S. There could have been a national moratorium on foreclosures that could have allowed people to remain in their homes pending the outcome of the current crisis.

"Those who have guided the economic policy of the country must yield to the needs of the people who are the engine of any real program of reconstruction and renewal."
At the same time, the $700 billion annual defense budget—including the continuing occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan—is draining the resources of the country in wars that have no end and that could not possibly be won by a western industrialized nation against peoples of the developing world. These Pentagon resources could be re-allocated to build mass transit systems throughout the country, reopen closed schools, and rehire laid-off educators. There could be a genuine effort to repair the national infrastructure. All of these initiatives could result in the creation of millions of jobs.

What is most important in any plans to create jobs and stimulate economic growth is the empowerment of working people and the poor. This is something that receives a hostile response from the corporate community and the federal government. Nonetheless, if people feel they have no influence in the actual operations of the state and capital, their productivity and general outlook will be severely affected.

If there is no rapid reversal of the massive job losses in the U.S., the long-term implications will be catastrophic. With the need for 25 million jobs for the unemployed and underemployed this year, consumer spending will further decline and more businesses could slide into bankruptcy, resulting in even more unemployment.

Consequently, the epidemic of job losses and home foreclosures will contribute substantially to the erosion of living standards and social stability. Those who have guided the economic policy of the country must yield to the needs of the people who are the engine of any real program of reconstruction and renewal.

People’s Summit confronts real state of economy

Phalanx of police guard CEO’s meeting at the Renaissance Center DIANE BUKOWSKI PHOTO

By Diane Bukowski
The Michigan Citizen

DETROIT — “The economy is crumbling because its roots are sunk in blood and unpaid labor,” declared City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson during the June 14 opening session of the National People’s Summit and Tent City in Grand Circus Park.

“We cannot fix it with band-aids,” she said. “We are demanding an urban Marshall Plan for Detroit, $10 billion, only 10 percent of the $100 billion the government has given to Wall Street. We have a critical mass in the people here to begin that fight: march twice, to Lansing and to Washington, demand a special meeting with President Barack Obama. You cannot bail out the auto industry and not the workers and their homes.”

She added that Detroit can be re-populated by offering young people government housing for $1 with no property taxes and guaranteeing jobs through projects like using the “gold mine” of the Great Lakes to provide renewable, alternate energy sources.

The four-day Tent City, which included marches and other protests, was called in response to a national business summit taking place June 15 -18 at the Marriott Hotel in downtown Detroit’s Renaissance Center.

“It’s time to define America’s future in a global economy, and YOU are invited,” the business summit website trumpeted. However, the people who attended were nearly all white males representing corporations, banks and lenders, along with politicians whose campaign coffers are filled with corporate donations.

The companies have reaped billions in tax bailouts, while laying off millions of workers, foreclosing on homes and sending so-called “middle-class” America to live in the streets with the ranks of the long-term homeless. (See photo box.)

Laid-off autoworkers, welfare rights activists, representatives of the differently-abled and dozens of others joined forces with people like Robert Miller, a Vietnam veteran who has been homeless for 40 years, and Linda James, also homeless. James lost the toes on one foot to frostbite, but she helped pass out literature about the people’s fightback.

“The government needs to help homeless people,” said James. “They’ve got so many buildings they can open. I lost my toes because all the shelters were full and I have no insurance to get my medication. I have seizures, high blood pressure, and schizophrenia.”

A major focus of the People’s Summit was the campaign for a moratorium on all foreclosures and evictions.

“Bail out the people, not the banks,” demonstrators chanted June 15 as hundreds marched on the Renaissance Center, which was heavily guarded by police, including a mobile ministation, to protect conference goers from the people’s wrath.

Among the business summit speakers were Vikram Pandit, CEO of Citigroup, which has foreclosed on tens of thousands of families, and Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, who has refused to declare a state of emergency in Detroit to open the door for a moratorium.

Speakers and U.S. Senators Debbie Stabenow and Carl Levin voted to give billions to banks who are refusing to re-negotiate loans to distressed homeowners.

“There is no help right now,” declared attorney Vanessa Fluker, who works day and night along with the Moratorium NOW! Coalition to keep people in their homes.

“A reality check shows that the federal legislation mandating that lenders modify loans has no enforcement provisions,” Fluker said. “I’ve had clients who took out mortgages at six percent, and they’ve been modified to 12 percent, people whose monthly payments went from $400 to $2,400, and $1,200 to $4,400. Government statistics have shown that African Americans, Hispanics and senior citizens are targeted for these types of loans.”

She noted that not only do the companies evicting homeowners get reimbursed through insurance from Fannie Mae, they also take out vandalism insurance and get paid when homes are stripped after evictions take place.

State Sen. Hansen Clarke called on the gathering to support Senate Bill 29, which would establish a moratorium on foreclosures for two years, on a case by case basis. He said the 90-day moratorium signed by Granholm “will not help one person in foreclosure now or in the future.”

Plant workers from American Axle in Detroit, Toledo Jeep and Chrysler Twinsburg in Ohio, and UE workers from North Carolina marched a second time on the RenCen June 16. They demanded that their employers along with Ford, General Motors, American Axle and other companies, whose CEOs spoke at the forum, restore the workers they have laid off to jobs in re-tooled, green energy plants.

At 3 p.m., they gathered again at the Tent City site to hear from Rev. Jesse Jackson, who also spoke at the business summit, and other speakers.

Dianne Feeley, one of the American Axle workers who struck at the plant for weeks last year to stop its shutdown, noted, “American Axle’s CEO Richard Dauch bought up dozens of GM plants so he could whipsaw one against the other, reducing wages to as little as $10 an hour and sending jobs to Mexico, Singapore and other parts of the world to exploit workers there.”

Paul Wohlfarth, a Toledo Jeep retiree after 31 years with the company, said retirees’ eyeglass and dental benefits will be eliminated July 1. He and a co-worker stood next to a cardboard box with a chimney pipe which represented the future homes of many new hires. He said they are making $14 an hour, getting 40lK retirement plans dependent on stock market swings, and have been forced into an underfunded UAW-run health plan.

Marguerite Maddox, a representative of the differently abled, was greeted with cheers as she spoke at the June 14 rally accompanied by her seeing-eye dog. She later led a march on a Detroit People Mover station that is not accessible.

“I’m fed up with the health care system, they’ve eliminated our coverage for hearing aids and glasses,” she said of Medicaid. She called for jobs for anyone who lives in Detroit, including the differently abled like herself.

Activities June 16 also included a rally to close the Detroit Incinerator and promote recycling held at Spirit of Detroit statue on the corner of Woodward and Jefferson.

Other speakers at the event included Maureen Taylor of the Welfare Rights Organization, Baldemar Velasquez, head of the Ohio-based Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), Sandra Hines of the Moratorium NOW! coalition.

The people fight back in Detroit

from The Arab American News

By Nick Meyer
Friday, 06.19.2009, 06:04am

DETROIT — As voices of anger and frustration echoed through the air at Grand Circus Park in Detroit on Tuesday, many onlookers couldn't help but stop by to see what all the noise was about.

Civil rights activist Jesse Jackson, center, and Reverend Edwin Rowe, L, of Central United Methodist Church in Detroit. PHOTO: NIck Meyer/TAAN

What they found upon visiting the National People's Summit was that the event didn't discriminate in terms of the problems it tackled.

From calling for a moratorium on housing foreclosures and "bailing out the people" to freeing Palestine and ending the wars against Iraq and Afghanistan, there was no shortage of critical human rights issues to discuss.

The event ran from June 14-17 in response to the National Business Summit held at the Renaissance Center as representatives from large companies like Conoco-Phillips, Dow Chemical and General Motors met to discuss new policy ideas.

Earlier in the day, protestors rallied outside of the Renaissance Center as the leaders met before heading back to the tent city and stage set up in Grand Circus Park.

Reverend Edwin Rowe from nearby Central United Methodist Church, who hosted a large pro-Palestinian rally back in February, was among the featured speakers. He lashed out at those responsible for the financial crisis and used a familiar rallying cry from the Palestinian situation: "No justice, no peace!" he said, referring to bank bailouts.

"Why do we trust Wall Street to help when they are the same people who destroyed the workers?"

Rowe added that the 36th District Court near his church has essentially become a foreclosure court and said banks get paid for foreclosures and even for acts of vandalism against abandoned houses, which are common.

He also bemoaned the lack of support for victims of the crisis from interfaith leaders of all religions.

"Whenever the media sticks a microphone in your face, we need to tell them that our leaders are betraying their own scriptures by not standing with the laid off workers."

Famous civil rights activist Jesse Jackson stopped by later in the day and brought extra media coverage and more curious passers-by to the event. He also focused on the foreclosure problem.

"The banks have more money than they can spend, yet the people languish in poverty," he said.

Jackson pointed out that about 600,000 people in the United States lose their jobs each month and that the banks still aren't lending despite being awash in new funds.

There was also a strong pro-union contingent at the summit, including activist Bryan Pfeifer, who discussed the importance of the working class staying united in the face of corporate power instead of pointing fingers.

"Solidarity is important even with international workers; the union is the only way to go," he said, saying that an honest job on a living wage is a human right.

Pfeifer recalled stories from his grandfather about how an alliance with a Mexican union helped end an auto strike.

"When unions fight each other, the enemy loves that," he said.

After Jesse Jackson's speech, Rowe took time to clarify his words on stage and touch on other issues.

He recalled his trip to Palestine and drew a parallel between the bulldozing of houses by Israeli forces to the situation in America.

"I was there and I saw the bulldozers that said 'Made in America' on the side; what's going on now in America is just another kind of bulldozer."

He said that most of the foreclosure victims had little chance to save their homes as mortgage rates rose from 5% to around 18% in the cases Rowe was informed about.

Rowe previously discussed with Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm at an NAACP event the possibility of declaring a moratorium on foreclosures as the state did during the Great Depression in 1934 for five years as opposed to the 90-day policy they currently have.

Rowe said that lawyers sent her information proving it is legal as she requested, but Granholm hasn't addressed the issue as promised.

With word out that Michigan's unemployment rate had risen to 14.1% on Wednesday, its highest since 1983, and foreclosures piling up across the state, the odds seem stacked against the working class.

Rowe offered advice on how citizens can do their best keep their heads above water.

"We get on TV and talk about supporting small businesses but we don't do it. Supporting small businesses is very important.

"We've also got to ask our religious leaders from our churches, mosques, and synagogues to do more," he said, adding that the black civil rights struggle in America was successful because of their support.

"This is a civil rights issue and if we're ever going to stand behind our workers it has to be here and now."

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Workers, youth open fightback at Tent City

Facing evictions, repression, no jobs

Published Jun 17, 2009 4:34 PM

By Kris Hamel
Tent City, Detroit

June 16—Hundreds of poor and working people have gathered at the National People’s Summit and Tent City in downtown Detroit to put forward the people’s vision of a future with guaranteed jobs and income, universal health care, housing and utilities, and all rights that working class people are currently denied under the capitalist system.

More than 330 people registered for the four-day event. They have come from throughout metro Detroit and Michigan—even workers from the Upper Peninsula are at Tent City. Workers and activists from Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio and more are represented.

The People’s Summit and Tent City, based in Grand Circus Park from June 14-17, was called in response to the National Summit of big-business CEOs and executives being held at the General Motors Renaissance Center—GM’s world headquarters.

General Motors Renaissance Center—GM’s world headquarters.

“They’re going to regret the closing of 14 plants and the laying off of General Motors workers, because the workers are fighting back!” said Frank Hammer, a retired United Auto Workers International representative and leader of the Autoworker Caravan, as he opened the rally after a militant demonstration outside the big-business summit today.
American Axle workers.

More than 500 workers, including many from around Michigan and Ohio, marched in front of the GM Renaissance Center demanding jobs and human needs, not corporate greed. “The workers have spoken—keep the plants open!” was one of many chants that thundered from East Jefferson Avenue as dozens of cops and private thugs stood in formation guarding the privately owned Ren Cen.

As the workers marched and rallied for jobs, Richard Dauch, CEO of American Axle and Manufacturing, Inc., addressed the capitalists inside, along with former Michigan Gov. John Engler.

Dauch wrested tremendous concessions from striking UAW workers in 2008, cutting wages and benefits in half. Workers were promised their jobs would be saved, but now Dauch has broken that vow and the American Axle plant in Hamtramck, Mich., located within the city of Detroit, has closed.
Disabled contingent.

Engler was rewarded for his gutting of welfare and education in Michigan with his appointment as president and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers.

more with photos

National People's Summit holds demonstration at RenCen; speakers at Tent City

DETROIT -- A demonstration was held Tuesday afternoon outside the GM Renaissance Center, where the National Business Summit was being held. It was picketed by the National People's Summit, whose theme that day was "Stop the war on the workers and poor - feed the people, not the Pentagon!". They were marching and chanting with "No jobs, no peace!", "No justice, no peace!".

One of the speakers at the business summit that day was Former Governor John Engler, who is named one of the enemies by the summit and Tent City stationed at Grand Circus Park on Woodward and Adams. Engler is both the president and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers. He is "hated by the workers and the poor throughout the state for his legacy of racism, welfare gutting, cutbacks and attacks on unions."

"The People's Summit was organized and initiated by the Moratorium NOW Coalition to stop foreclosures and eviction," said Jerry Goldberg, an organizer of the National People's Summit. "When we heard there was going to be a National Business Summit with the major CEOs of all the corporations convened in Detroit. We said we have to answer that. We thought they have a lot of gull these CEOs whose shutting plants, laying off people, tossing people out of their homes. What we were going to organize a people's response of the workers and the poor, those suffering from plant closures and layoffs."

To them, the National Business Summit is all about getting to the bottom line: banks, businesses, and corporations learning to satisfy their greed as well as getting the economy back on the track their way -- while getting rich off the suffering of the working class, the middle class, the needy, and the oppressed.

"I'm here to support the People's Summit, the other side of the business summit," said Bill Meyer of Hamtramck, Mich., who participated in the demonstration. "I'm not one of the organizers but I'm a strong supporter of it. Our country's in desperate shape right now. We're going down the tubes this country. We've got to do something about it. Everyone's affected by what goes on in the economy in the U.S. The whole world is feeling effects of our economic meltdown here."

The National People's Summit, which concluded on Wednesday, is based on the legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: his advocacy of civil rights, racial equality, and social justice for all. Though independent of his Poor People's Campaign, the principle and the results are the same: the focus of education, housing, health care, job loss and rise of unemployment, and having an Economic Bill of Rights. So, it is up to the people, to join the good fight of freedom, liberty, and peace against what it seems to be an corrupt system.

"I support the workers and the unions and the poor people, the homeless and the unemployed," said Michael Whitty, a University of Detroit Mercy professor who participated in the demonstration. "We're trying to change the way people are treated. We believe that people come before profits. We should give up the creed of greed. The real danger is Wall Street piracy not Somali piracy. We've been taken to the cleaners by the power elite. We want to take our power back."

Still, in the end, like Dr. King, we must all learn to overcome, break down barriers, find common ground, and work together to bring a world divided into one.

"We've been camped out in downtown Detroit since Sunday," said David Sole, an organizer of the event and UAW member. "We've had a People's Summit to oppose the rich and famous summit going on. The people who have already ruined America, the big CEOs, the bankers, plant closers. We're the victims of that. We're meeting to plan our own future. We're not going to let them plan our future. We're fighting back and organizing. We're working on a people's agenda, people's economic program that includes reopening the plants, taking billions of dollars that the government gave these crooks. We believe a job is the right of every person."

more with lots of photos

People's Summit in the News - June 16

To fight global capitalist crisis
People’s Summit discusses issues, action plan


People's Summit in the Motor City -- for the People only

Freep.com >> Photos main >> News photos

People's Summit Protest: Day 2

WXYZ - Jackson Leads Protests at Detroit Business Summit

Rev. Jesse Jackson rallies workers

People's Summit in the News - June 15

WXYZ - Tent City Springs Up in Downtown Detroit

WDET- National People's Summit Opens at Grand Circus Park

Detroit Free Pess - Activists protest National Summit

Detroit Free Press - Business conference draws protest

WDIV - Protestors camp out in Detroit

WZZM - Economic Summit Opens in Detroit - a different summit also underway

WDIV- People's Summit Rallies, Protests Outside National Summit

WZZM 13 - Interview with People's Summit organizer (at end)

Speak up if you want change to happen

BY DESIREE COOPER
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
June 10, 2009

Attending high school graduation parties last weekend, I was struck by the contrast between enthusiastic young people and palpably subdued adults. While the kids chattered about their futures, the adult conversation was all about the stress of long-term unemployment, pending foreclosures, destroyed credit ratings and mounting bills.

I have a new perspective on post-9/11 New York and even New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. I'm realizing it's possible for an entire city -- even a nation -- to be clinically depressed.

This year, it seems like even summer has forsaken Detroit.

"We'll survive," people say just to avoid thinking about what happens if we don't. "What else can we do?"

Maybe we can try the one thing we haven't tried yet -- letting out a collective shout.

Something for all the people

That's just what the organizers of the National People's Summit and Tent City hope that Detroiters are finally ready to do.

"A lot of people are in a state of shock," said Abayomi Azikiwe, a spokesman for next week's event. "They never anticipated that this kind of economic decline would happen in the United States. But it has, and we have to wake up and be proactive."

For three days beginning Sunday, the People's Summit will include rallies, speeches and demonstrations on the issues of unemployment, foreclosures, national health insurance and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. All of them are directly tied to misguided economic policies of outsourcing, overproduction, predatory mortgage lending and an unsustainable military budget, said Azikiwe.

The People's Summit has been timed to coincide with the National Summit, a conference of more than 1,000 business, economic, academic and government leaders organized by the Detroit Economic Club.

The National Summit, to be held Monday through June 17 at the Detroit Marriott at the Renaissance Center, is billed as a "gathering to define America's future."

Let the leaders know

But Azikiwe said the National Summit will be missing the ordinary people who have been adversely affected by the decisions of those attending.

"The corporate and government leaders who created this problem haven't changed their perspectives about what's going on," he said. "We have to make our voices heard."

On Monday afternoon, there will be a march to the Renaissance Center. On Tuesday, there will be a noon rally in front of the complex while former Michigan Gov. John Engler, now president of the National Association of Manufacturers, and American Axle & Manufacturing Chief Executive Officer Richard Dauch address the convocation inside.

When I asked Azikiwe whether he thought that mere demonstrations would change our dire economic situation, he reminded me that's the only way that systemic change has happened in the past -- when the people speak up.

If the current economic conditions make you want to holler, here's your chance to be heard.

Contact DESIREE COOPER: dcooper@freepress.com

Additional Facts
National summit to start Sunday

The National People's Summit and Tent City will be held from Sunday through June 17. Most activities will take place at Grand Circus Park in Detroit. A march from the park to the Renaissance Center will begin at 4 p.m. Monday.

For the schedule of events, go to www.peoplessummit.org or call 313-887-4344 for more info.

original Detroit Free Press article

Union Auto Workers Planning Rally

Frank Hammer, retired president of UAW Local 909, spoke at a press conference on June 9. (Credit: FOX 2 News)


Updated: Tuesday, 09 Jun 2009, 6:17 PM EDT
Published : Tuesday, 09 Jun 2009, 6:17 PM EDT
foxdetroit
by Simon Shaykhet



HAMTRAMCK, Mich. - In one of the most trying times in the UAW's history, auto workers are in a fight to keep their jobs. A press conference Tuesday at UAW Local 235 sent a very strong message. Auto workers in metro Detroit will be rallying soon to challenge plant closings and layoffs.

Some of the auto workers who showed up to the press conference work for American Axle, but the rally that is planned for June 16 will also include GM and Chrysler employees, as well as retired workers facing health care costs.

They are urging the state to declare an emergency in Michigan with a moratorium on foreclosures, evictions and utility shutoffs. They are also asking for enforcement of a federal Full Employment Act basically making the government responsible for using all programs and policies to put people back to work.

On June 16, the rally will be at noon outside the Renaissance Center in Detroit and coincides with American Axle's president and former Governor John Engler addressing the National Business Summit.

"The CEO of American Axle, who is taking all the work out of this plant, taking it to places where he can get cheaper labor and leaving our community devastated and leaving the workers without employment," said Frank Hammer, retired president of UAW Local 909.

Other events are also planned to give people a chance to speak out.

This week, the rich and poor will rub elbows downtown

Metro Times

By News Hits staff

When the Detroit Economic Club hosts a gathering of corporate executives and others in mid-June, the focus will be finding ways to improve America's ability to compete in the global economy. Those leaders will be met by a counter-gathering of people who, we think it's safe to say, won't be wearing $1,000 custom-tailored suits.

In fact, some of them will be staying in tents pitched in Grand Circus Park, from June 14 to 17, as groups whose priorities include stopping foreclosures, advocating prisoner rights and fighting racism — along with keeping good-paying jobs here at home instead of watching the CEOs export work overseas — also convene here.

The bigwigs will be sure to get most of the press, but the fire and the fun will be at Grand Circus Park. Along with a host of speakers and rallies, the campers and their brethren will have lots of entertainment, including a hip-hop concert Monday, June 15, at 7:30 p.m.

For information phone 313-887-4344 or go to peoplessummit.org. Send donations to Moratorium NOW!/People's Summit, 5920 Second Ave., Detroit, MI 48202.

News Hits is edited by Curt Guyette. Contact him at 313-202-8004 or NewsHits@metrotimes.com.

People’s Summit vs. National Business Summit

Detroit June 14-17

By Kris Hamel
Detroit

Published May 17, 2009 9:41 PM

Organizers of the People’s Summit, including a tent city, in downtown Detroit June 14-17 report momentum is building for the event. It’s billed as “four days of active resistance” to counter the National Business Summit held June 15-17 at the GM Renaissance Center.

On May 5 the Detroit City Council approved the People’s Summit application for a permit allowing the four-day demonstration based in Grand Circus Park on Woodward Ave. Organizers spoke at several meetings urging council members to override the police and other city departments that had recommended denying the permit. Councilwoman JoAnn Watson was instrumental in obtaining a unanimous vote granting a permit for the tent city.

‘Big business doesn’t speak for us!’

The National Business Summit Web site shows an array of 99 percent white and mostly male speakers at their event, which will be co-chaired by Ford Motor Company executive head Bill Ford and Dow Chemical chief executive Andrew Liveris. They call it a national gathering “to define America’s future” and exhort other corporate giants to “Make your voice heard–stand up for your country, your company, and your future!” (nationalsummit.org)

Former Michigan Governor John Engler, who is hated by workers and the poor throughout the state for his legacy of racism, welfare gutting, cutbacks and attacks on unions, will be among over 40 speakers at the big-business event. Engler is now the president and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers.

Richard Dauch, the chairman and CEO of American Axle & Manufacturing, Inc., is also a slated speaker. Dauch recently announced that the AAM plant in Hamtramck, Mich., the site of a bitter strike by union workers in 2008, will be closed and operations moved to Mexico. About 3,000 AAM workers already had their jobs eliminated last year.

Because of lower-than-expected registrations—at $1,495 a pop!—the business summit was moved from Ford Field and the registration fee slashed to “only” $695. It seems the conveners of the event, sponsored by the Detroit Economic Club, realized late in the game that the capitalist economic crisis was even affecting some rich folks. The reduced registration fee, however, is still too exorbitant for poor people and workers, including laid-off and unemployed workers, to have a “voice.”

‘Bail out the people!’

Literature for the People’s Summit declares: “How dare these big-business honchos come to Detroit to plot how to enrich themselves further while we struggle against home foreclosures and evictions, homelessness, mass layoffs and plant closings, utility cutoffs, school shutdowns, budget cuts, record-high unemployment, racism and every other kind of outrage!” Organizers say their event will allow the true voice of the people to be heard.

The People’s Summit will include a tent city, marches, demonstrations, rallies, cultural programs, meals and town hall meetings to discuss a “People’s Stimulus Plan and Economic Bill of Rights” so that poor and working people can define their own vision of a future free of social and economic injustice and inequality.

“Bail out the people!” has become a rallying cry for the People’s Summit, which will protest the multi-trillion-dollar give-away to the big banks and corporations that have caused the very economic crisis facing working-class people today.

Many issues will be taken up during the four-day event, which is seen as an all-inclusive demonstration linking the many struggles challenging the war on poor and working people. The People’s Summit will put forward a program for jobs, universal health care, a moratorium on foreclosures and evictions, and full rights for oppressed nationalities, immigrants, people with disabilities, women and the lesbian/gay/bi and trans communities, along with other demands.

Endorsers of the People’s Summit include the national anti-war group Code Pink, U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr., the Toledo Foreclosure Defense League, the national Bail Out the People Movement, Latinos Unidos de Michigan, Michigan Welfare Rights Organization, Auto Worker Caravan, United Auto Workers Local 909 Executive Board, the Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures and Evictions, and many other groups and individuals.

People’s Summit organizers are doing intensive outreach and leafleting. Already the event has received media attention from the Detroit News, Crain’s Detroit Business, Michigan Citizen, Detroiter, Metro Times and other outlets. Activists from Cleveland and Toledo, Ohio, Chicago, Atlanta, New York City and Raleigh-Durham, N.C., are planning to attend.

Donations of food, supplies and funds for the People’s Summit are being solicited. Checks or money orders payable to the Moratorium NOW! Coalition/People’s Summit can be sent to 5920 Second Ave., Detroit, MI 48202. Call 313-887-4344 or visit www.peoplessummit.org for more information or to endorse, get leaflets and volunteer.

http://www.workers.org/2009/us/peoples_summit_0521/

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People vs. the powerful - People’s Summit takes shape

By Eric T. Campbell
The Michigan Citizen

DETROIT — Hundreds of America’s most powerful businessmen and CEOs will convene inside Ford Field on June 15 to discuss the future of the U.S. economy. In fact, the National Summit is described on its website as, “A Gathering to Define America’s Future.”

Area activists have determined that any discourse on the path of the economy should include those who are most affected — the working class and poor of America who have endured the brunt of the current economic upheaval. In response, the Moratorium Now! Coalition has applied to the City of Detroit for a permit to stage a corresponding People’s Summit in Grand Circus Park from June 14-17.

The People’s Summit is hoping to assemble citizens from all over the region to strategize for a People’s Stimulus Plan and an Economic Bill of Rights. Organizers say that the rally will be an opportunity to confront big business with the realities of the economy.

“It was our view that people should be allowed to be out there and discussing their own economic agenda,” Moratorium Now! Coalition member David Sole told the Michigan Citizen. “We believe we have the right to meet, especially with the way the economy is now.”

more

In tent city

by Curt Guyette, Metro Times

.... For members of the group Moratorium Now, which began howling about the problems related to foreclosures long before most people were paying attention, the event will be a chance to provide a bunch of rich CEOs with a sharp dose of reality when they show up at Ford Field.

The intent is to set up a tent city at Grand Circus Park. Can you say Hooverville? ...

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People’s Summit June 14-17

By Kris Hamel
Detroit

Published Mar 7, 2009 6:59 AM

The Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures and Evictions voted unanimously on Feb. 28 to call a People’s Summit in Detroit from June 14-17. Organizers will begin widespread outreach to garner endorsers and draw other organizations into building for the June activities. These actions will include a march along Woodward Avenue for jobs and housing and a tent city in Grand Circus Park of the foreclosed-upon, jobless, underpaid, homeless and all who struggle for social and economic justice.

The People’s Summit will occur simultaneously with the National Business Summit, sponsored by the Detroit Economic Club, taking place at Ford Field in downtown Detroit. Millionaire and billionaire capitalists, including the heads of ConocoPhillips, Dow Chemical, General Motors, Chrysler, Humana Inc., Ascension Health, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, BNSF Railway Co. and PVS Chemicals, will gather at this event June 15-17. The presidents of the National Council on Competitiveness and U.S. Chamber of Commerce will also be attending.

Calling it “a Gathering to Define America’s Future,” the business summit’s Web site states: “Participants will have direct access to ... top business, government and academic leaders and a voice in shaping the outcome of the discussion.” In order to have a voice, however, a registration fee of $1,495 per person is required.

Those who can afford this exorbitant registration fee will be putting their heads together to discuss “innovation and policy ideas in technology, energy, environment and manufacturing.” In other words, they will be strategizing on how to further increase their profits at the expense of the ever-shrinking middle class, the vast working class and the growing millions living in utter poverty.

These business tycoons will gather in a city reeling from rampant foreclosures and evictions, record unemployment, plant closings, mass layoffs, school closings, cutbacks, union busting and other forms of devastation.

President Barack Obama and cabinet members have been invited to this gathering. Will these business tycoons allow Obama’s economic stimulus plan to proceed? Will they create jobs at living wages? Will homeowners have real opportunities to avoid foreclosure? Or will the suffering and misery continue?

Only a mass struggle of those most affected by the capitalist economic crisis will turn the tide. The Moratorium NOW! Coalition organizers note that so far only the banks and mortgage lenders have been bailed out, to the tune of trillions of dollars of workers’ tax money—money sorely needed to rebuild the lives of the people.

Organizers hope that the People’s Summit will attract everyone struggling for social and economic justice, not just in Detroit and Michigan, but on a national level. Everyone involved in any progressive struggle is urged to organize for the June 14-17 event.

Kris Hamel is an organizer for the Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures and Evicitions. She can be reached at krisdetroit@yahoo.com