Protests target emergency manager takeover

April 27 demonstration says ‘No’ to emergency manager dictatorship. WW photo: Kris Hamel

In this southwest Michigan city of approximately 11,000 people, the majority of whom are African American and working class, recent actions by new Gov. Rick Snyder represent a major affront. The passage of a state law on March 9 expands the powers already afforded to the governor to literally reshape municipal and county governments and public school districts.

The law allows a governor to appoint a so-called “emergency financial manager” (EFM) who can suspend the political authority of the mayor, city council or school board and then issue orders for the layoff of workers and the slashing of wages and benefits as well as the seizure of pension funds.

This has already taken place in the majority-African-American, Michigan cities of Pontiac, where an emergency financial manager is still in control, and Highland Park, where for several years the elected local government could only make recommendations to a corporate-oriented state appointee who in most cases acted strictly on behalf of the financial institutions and the transnational corporations.

In Detroit the public school system was taken over by an emergency financial manager appointed by former Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm in 2009. Although the appointment of the EFM was ostensibly designed to lower the budget deficit and clean up corruption, in actuality the deficit rose by nearly $200 million and questionable practices increased.

In Benton Harbor on April 27, people gathered from around the city and state to demonstrate solidarity with the residents of this heavily oppressed city. A standing-room-only crowd gathered at the public library, where several speakers, including Mayor Wilce Cooke; the Rev. Edward Pinkney; Margaret Humphreys, a Norton Shores, Mich., resident; the Rev. D. Alexander Bullock of the Michigan Rainbow/PUSH Coalition; and others addressed the crowd.

Wilce called his city “the new Selma of the 21st century.” Pinkney, president of the local NAACP and a longtime Benton Harbor activist who served time as a political prisoner, said, “When I warned several years ago that there was a takeover of Benton Harbor planned, some said I was a madman. Now we have a dictatorship.”

After the rally the people poured into the streets of downtown Benton Harbor, where they marched and chanted against the state takeover. Joseph Harris, the EFM appointed by the former governor, has drawn criticism from people throughout Michigan as well as observers around the country.

Corporate origins of economic crisis

Many feel that what is taking place in Benton Harbor is the same program that was attempted in Wisconsin, where Gov. Scott Walker forced a bill through with a Republican majority that effectively outlaws collective bargaining for public sector unions.

By edict of an EFM, elected officials have their authority stripped and the rights of workers can be immediately dissolved and their benefits taken away. Residents of Benton Harbor and the rest of the state do not want this to happen.

Former Michigan resident John Waltz, one of the rally organizers and speakers, is with Heartland Revolution, a Kentucky-based organization. He said ballot language is being turned in for a recall campaign against State Rep. Al Pscholka of Stevensville, Mich., who proposed the new emergency management bill that recently passed.

After the march through downtown, activists rallied at City Hall and agreed to return on May 7, when Gov. Snyder will serve as grand marshal for the Blossomtime Parade. The community leaders also announced that they would hold another rally on June 18, the eighth anniversary of the 2003 Benton Harbor rebellion.

Benton Harbor has suffered a similar fate as Detroit, which lost most of its industrial jobs over the last three decades. Unemployment in the city is high and so is the rate of home foreclosures.

Speakers at the April 27 rally drew a direct line between the imposition of an EFM and the role of the Whirlpool Corp. and the Harbor Shores Development Project. Whirlpool was once a major employer in Benton Harbor and U.S. Rep. Fred Upton is said to be an heir to the corporation.

Rev. Pinkney said that Pscholka, Upton and the governor were part of a concerted effort to take control of the entire city, as was done with Jean Klock Park, a lakefront property that was privatized for the purpose of establishing the Jack Nicklaus Golf Course and a commercial-residential project worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

“If we had no lakefront property, we’d have no EFM,” Pinkney said at the rally. “It’s time we come together and fight these bloodsucking corporations.”

The situation in Benton Harbor is instructive for many municipalities throughout the U.S. As the economic crisis deepens, the previous notions of universal suffrage and local control will come under increasing attack by the ruling class and the state.