Anti-Snyder protest draws thousands in Michigan
By KATHY BARKS HOFFMAN More from BusinessWeek
LANSING, Mich.
In the biggest rally of the year at the Michigan Capitol, more than 5,000 people on Wednesday raised signs and chanted slogans protesting Gov. Rick Snyder's policies, including proposals to tax some retirement income and make deep cuts to public schools and universities while eliminating business taxes for thousands of companies.
"The script Governor Snyder has written for his Republican cronies is not the kind of Michigan we want to live in," Herb Sanders of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Workers told the crowd. "If the politicians won't listen to us at the Capitol, then we're prepared to take the fight to them in their home districts."
Protests last month were sparked by the Republican governor's efforts to give sweeping new powers to emergency financial managers and tax most retirement income. Snyder agreed Tuesday not to tax seniors over age 66, but protesters said he's still forcing residents to pay for about $1.7 billion in business tax cuts, a move many found unacceptable.
One person waved a sign that said, "Read my lips: No new taxes . . . except for Grandpa & Grandma."
Another protester wore a Grim Reaper costume with "Reaper Rick" on the front and a sign overhead predicting "a grim future for Michigan."
The rally lasted for hours, with teachers and other workers joining once they were off work.
Brett Larson, a 48-year-old from Midland who installs insulation, said he doesn't have a very high opinion of Snyder. He made the 80-mile drive to Lansing to stand up for the middle class along with other members of his union, the International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Allied Workers Local 47.
"I believe we are under attack," he said. "We need jobs, but we need to make a decent wage at it, too."
Twenty-nine-year old welder Zeke Jaworski drove from Monroe to join other members of Monroe Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 671 attending the rally. He wondered why GOP lawmakers are supporting measures that would hurt collective bargaining rights when so many citizens were outside saying they opposed the bills.
"I feel that government officials should be representing the people," Jaworski said. Their "disregard for anything we say is totally immoral."
Republicans who control the state Legislature on Wednesday took a key step toward requiring public employees in Michigan to pay at least 20 percent of their health insurance premiums, part of what the GOP calls an effort to control government costs. A GOP-led Senate committee approved two measures connected to the effort on party-line vote.
Democrats and some labor leaders oppose the move, saying health care costs should be bargained in contracts between public employers and union-represented employees and that a one-size-fits-all approach won't work. Protesters booed when the measure was mentioned at the rally as an example of anti-union attacks by the Legislature.
More than 100 of the protesters took their complaints inside the Capitol, chanting "Recall Rick" and "our House" in the Capitol rotunda.
But most remained outside on the Capitol lawn, where sunny skies and 60-degree temperatures greeted those protesting the elimination of the state Earned Income Tax Credit for low-income workers, the move of $800 million from public schools to higher education and Snyder's plan to tax at least some of the retirement income of those 66 and younger to pay for the cut in business taxes.
Told by Sanders that lawmakers were considering 40 bills that would undermine collective bargaining rights and hurt workers, the crowd chanted, "That's not right!"
East Detroit High School history teacher Lincoln Stocks warned that the deep cuts the governor wants to make to public schools will "destroy public education in Michigan." School districts are looking at cuts of 8 percent to 10 percent and many have warned they could end up in the red.
"We must support public education because it's our only hope for a prosperous future in Michigan," Stocks said.
On Thursday, groups that oppose tax increases and support tea party values will hold their annual Tax Day rally at the Capitol.