Unions React To Mayor Bing's Call For Cuts
DETROIT (WWJ) - "Let me make one thing perfectly clear: I don't want any Emergency Manager making decisions for my city," said Detroit Mayor Dave Bing. In order to avoid a takeover, Bing is calling for a 10-percent pay cut for city workers and 10- percent more paid toward benefits for employees and retirees.
As expected, the mayor's plan is not a welcome one among at least some union representatives. This includes AFSCME local 542 President Phillis McMillon who said the unions have offered concrete proposals for cuts which the city has ignored.
"We have offered the city different ways to save money -- they have rejected it," McMillon told WWJ Newsradio 950's Marie Osborne.
"They have an objective in mind and they're going for that objective. They don't care if you have a clear idea for it and that it works. They wanna do it. They wanna contract it out," she said.
McMillon is especially unhappy with the Mayor's proposal to have workers pay more for their health care.
"You have members out there that's afraid. You have a governor saying he wants 80/20. You have Bing that wants 70/30, and that's just for the health care," McMillon said. "Then ... you take that 10 percent (paycut), so the members are working basically to pay health care."
Outlining his plan in a public address Wednesday evening, Mayor Bing said the City of Detroit has "refused to face it's fiscal reality" for decades and is now a community in crisis.
