AFSCME Local 2920, the Public Utility Clerical Employees of the City of Detroit Michigan, was issued its charter on December 1st, 1976. Our local represents clerical and field workers in the Detroit Water and Sewerage, Public Lighting, Human Resources and Finance Departments.
This local union is committed to an aggressive fight for the interests of our membership as a whole. Local 2920 has fought hard against the attacks that have been launched against workers at the City of Detroit. Our local has played a leadership role in protesting the thousands of job cuts and layoffs and the imposition of contract concessions that have deeply harmed our members. We have tirelessly protested, picketed and rallied against the attacks on workers and poor in our City. Our local is dedicated to the continued fight against further budget cuts and closures of services that harm workers and cut precious services to the citizens and youth of Detroit.
We are steadfast in the fight for better city services to the Detroit community and the right of Detroit citizens to run the City in our own best interests. We continually battle against big businesses’ attempts to take our City’s resources for their greedy profits. When Detroit citizens have the power to operate our City for the interests of working class and poor citizens, Detroit has potential for greatness. For those reasons, we are serious about fighting against privatization and contracting out and for the preservation of jobs in Detroit now and for the future. We stand against any racist takeover schemes of the Water Department that would strip power from the citizens of Detroit to run our City.
We are committed to building union and community solidarity. We understand that it takes a unified struggle to gain social power for Detroit’s working-class and poor citizens. Our struggle includes protecting our city from big business takeovers and it also includes an aggressive fight for the preservation and expansion of civil rights. In 2003, our local joined the successful march in Washington D.C. to save affirmative action. In 2004, we successfully fought against Proposal E that would have given the Mayor control of the school board. In 2006, Local 2920 joined the lawsuit against the implementation of Proposal 2 that would make affirmative action programs illegal in Michigan and will have a devastating impact upon Detroit’s citizens and youth that already suffer in the poorest and most segregated city in the country.
Local 2920 has a perspective that only through struggle will we advance the quality of our livelihoods at work and in our neighborhoods. We need to rebuild a powerful civil rights and union movement. With a united struggle, we can stop the onslaught of attacks on workers and the attempts to strip us of the gains of the civil rights movement. Through struggle, we will be successful in gaining our right to access equal and quality jobs, housing, education, transportation and city services.
“The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.” - Malcolm X
For more information about AFSCME, its history, structure and more, please visit the AFSCME International’s website at: http://www.afscme.org/members/aboutindex.cfm
