For political purposes for the politicians this is a cash cow. They set up their alliances and employ laid off union labor via the contractors. Also the Democratic Party plays in this. The previous mayor who has a squeaky clean reputation and was co-chair of the Democratic National Committee. He didn’t have to carry out layoffs because of the booming economy under Clinton. But in raising money for Gore he was handing out contracts. For every contract they got Water and Sewage the appropriate PACS got money. It was a fund raising gimmick for the politicians. Now the economic upsurge is gone. The present mayor is raising and beefing up his PAC and political alliances, but now its being done—this cow that is being milked that is profitable to cement these alliances—is being carried out on the backs of AFSCME and a few other non-AFSCME union workers.

For instance, I’m in a classification skilled position. There’s only three of us on the roster in my district. Holes in other areas have to be covered by us 24/7 and its been going on like that for years and there’s shortages. They won’t hire. But regardless the trained workforce isn’t there. AFSCME should be fighting for training programs in high schools and these kids should be hired. There’s a way to build that youth and labor alliances and line up various church and community groups that would like to see this happen for young people. But they aren’t doing it.

For awhile there was competitive testing from the street. But AFSCME, with the attacks on it, have put a requirement in that for anyone who isn’t already on the union roles or have seniority (who are shrinking anyway) they had to have time as an AFSCME member. In other words, the unions are defending a shrinking pie rather than expanding the pie. It’s not a good situation. The unions are missing an opportunity to start building the idea and presence of unionism and struggle. It’s being missed because of the constant defensive thinking and too much, including the most combative locals who are leading resistance, of a tendency to fall into this defensive thinking.

This narrow thinking comes out in other ways. My local leadership has done a few decent things, but they are also caught up with most of their time in the state-wide and national campaign to defend affirmative action at elite universities for kids that are going to become part of the liberal professions like doctors and lawyers, but then they won’t fight for young people in the city to get hired and they are putting up their own barriers. They are not using union muscle for putting focus on working class kids who can become millwrights, electricians etc. There is a class bias. My local tries to build alliances but it isn’t taking up this urgent task and working its way deeper into the class. It isn’t concerned with training and erosion of skills which endangers the job and services. And this is what the rightwing in the area who wants to take over the infrastructure partially points to as an excuse.

NB: You talked about the union response or lack of one. What about the department workers?

Ermler: Some of the less skilled workers who are having their jobs axed may see that when less trained workers get hired they can get bumped one or two pay grades without getting the training. Some have the attitude on the job that things are management’s problem and narrowly interpret their jobs. That’s a problem. On the other hand, some of the more skilled workers agree with some of these things I’m talking about here. But some are in different unions and there isn’t yet the energy or vision to build cross-union struggles. The electricians are in the IBEW. They are a minority in which the majority is part of the private electrical industry who has had a lot of their people put to work on these projects. So they can’t change the politics of their locals because the local leadership is solving its unemployment problem. What would need to be built is across these trades, skills and unions. There’s been some serious resistance but its unsuccessful because of this. People don’t have a history of experience at self-organizing. Some have made attempts but there is uneven political consciousness.

There are other things happening. Some workers that have been part of the most serious resistance are two black women. However, at one of the locations an Iraqi-American was hired as an apprentice. You have this anti-immigrant and anti-Arab feeling. They went and said that this could endanger the water supply with this fifth column. This is probably the less genuine motivation. Instead they were also saying that the job should go to a native born black person, this is a black city, and what are you bringing an Arab in for. Some of the people I have respect for in how they have fought have said that a law ought to be passed that until every native born black person has a decent job there should be a ban on immigration. But they are generally against the war, and hate Bush and Cheney. The consciousness out there is problematic.

NB: Do you see a more general crisis of this infrastructure—not just the water but health care, education, transportation? If so, is it locally or nationally?

Ermler: I saw on TV an author being interviewed that has a book out on the coming crisis. All the major utilities and services have been about saving costs and the bean counters are in control. Those that oversee these don’t come from the ranks or those who have been on the job and know the work. The “bottom line” isn’t the whole thing. Also, the proliferation of immigrant workers with specific skills have filled the ranks of the infrastructure workers and when they start to stay in their countries of origin this is going to be a big problem. Management and officials are destroying the in-house training and the support for training in public institutions like in the community college system.

The author’s whole thesis was that this skilled immigrant labor is not going to be there forever. I have seen our in-house recruiting and training division burned and slashed. Some of my sites are next to terminals for the natural gas piping outfit, Wolverine. I do a lot of work with Detroit Edison that just had layoffs. People at these places are saying that they don’t know how private energy utilities are and these guys are telling me it’s the same thing with them. They say, “We don’t know where all this is going and when a bunch of us retire whether there will be the people with the knowledge base to run these things and respond to crises and as the energy use grows.” This is also true for emergencies. They won’t have the hands-on-type knowledge.

Similar things happen in the medical profession. The Detroit News did a lead on the drastic shortages of registered nurses since they are quitting because of the excessive overtime and overwork. They are being worked to death. They are getting paid well and even signing bonuses, but it’s brutal. According to the news article they aren’t slashing in medical technology. But there’s not enough of getting people ready in the school system in the city for these jobs. It’s pouring out of Wayne State, but the limited seats in these schools can’t fill the demands of the industry. Immigration is solving it. There are no labor and community coalition to address these problems. This seems to be the case in health care no matter where you go. This whole “bottom line” thinking and “profit motive is everything” is disintegrating the bonds of society, but it hasn’t become completely apparent yet. It’s a threat to social solidarity. The political cost of large concentrations of youth with no skills will be when they lash out. This will get a response from racists and law-and-order types. So this is where infrastructure is going.

NB: Why is it important for a labor movement to address these problems, particularly for a self-organized movement?

Ermler: This infrastructure is essential for a healthy, just and productive society. Much of what I talked about before applies here. Broader alliances need to be built around this question. The building of alliances between the skilled and unskilled. The shrinking pie of union jobs can’t be protected unless those who have been left outside the reservoir are linked up with. There is a need for radical mass public works to channel people able to man these facilities, which goes along ways toward cementing alliances between the employed and unemployed. That will play a major role as this stuff gets worse in isolating the Right as people drop into the dog-eat-dog mentality, let alone the kind of unity you need of a even bigger and deeper program.

NB: How would an economic planning model around these issues from a self-managed perspective emerge?

Ermler: First of all I could talk on and on what you could do with Detroit water because I know this area and this department. My knowledge is concrete. Some of what I said has broad generalizations that are applicable across infrastructure and nationally, especially for the so-called rustbelt. The problems aren’t as pronounced in economically growing areas with viable tax bases like in the cities in the sunbelt, and the Pacific Northwest. But the movement to build this is to be putting emphasis on much of what I’ve been saying.

You also have to imagine a movement that is not based just on students and the liberal professions, but those who have primarily spent years learning the ropes in these jobs. They need to get together with people in related industries and with ecologists and others and working out a concrete program for the various industries. When I think of the anarchist perspective—although I’m obviously for all of these concrete projects, whether it happens in united fronts or not—we need to build caucuses and industrial fractions that have national meetings. People with this desire need to link up.

For instance, such teachers in inner city schools come together nationally and come up with a program that addresses the problems of teaching in these public schools. The more that happens I think the better prepared folks are for the crisis and the future of a movement. In their locales and areas they can build the unity between certain sectors and your milieu in the service or industry. A self-management program can grow and deepen that way.

NB: Could you talk about the transition in Detroit to a predominately black city government and police force from a predominately white one?

Ermler: When Mayor Young came into power one of the major things he was riding in on was the anti-police terror, stop the STRESS campaign. It really helped give him a real grassroots and spirited push beyond conventional politics. It put him into power. To deal with this new reality a think tank, called New Detroit, made up of corporate leaders of the city came together. They knew this was the way they had to go and deal with it. They were basically fine with it. Young had decent relations with them.

There was a lot of resentment on the part of the large sections of the white community. Along with this, like what I said earlier about the auto industry jobs for black workers in possibilities that provided, black workers were buying houses in areas they weren’t allowed to earlier now with decent paying jobs. There was white resistance to this. In the northwest and west side there were numerous pipe bombings. Other neighborhoods there were cross burnings, drive-by shootings, break-ins that trashed houses with graffiti.

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