On November 24 at 11:00 p.m., the City Council meeting started after workers there waited four hours for council members to adjourn a finance committee meeting. The meeting approved the hundreds of layoffs proposed by Democratic mayor Jane Campbell earlier that day. Campbell said the need to balance a $61 million dollar budget deficit was the reason for the job cuts. Workers there included firefighters, paramedics, and others represented by American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Local 100 and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 47. There were also dozens of cops, who also face possible layoffs.

Nearly 730 city employees were initially due to be laid off on December 22, but on December 4 the city government laid off 293 workers with two weeks vacation pay—two weeks earlier than previously announced. Taking a tip from Washington’s “antiterrorist” campaign, city officials cited concerns over “sabotage” as the reason. Computer networks were shut down for “maintenance” before the announcement and remained down until laid-off workers were gone. In addition to job cuts, all city recycling and leaf pick-up services were eliminated. Hours will also be cut for city recreational centers.

The remaining 434 proposed lay-offs have been delayed by court order. The Cleveland Association of Rescue Employees (CARE) Local 1975 and the Cleveland Firefighters Union Local 93 have been in negotiations with the municipal administration.

The city is pushing for concessions in exchange for a reduction in layoffs from safety workers. “We’ll see if the older workers are willing to help the younger guys so they can keep working,” Campbell argued.  
 
No cuts for bondholders
The discussion in the finance committee meeting that held up the council members on the night of November 24 shed some light on whose interests the Democratic and Republican politicians serve and what they mean by “budget deficit.” When one council member suggested that the city look at borrowing from its “Enterprise Fund,” another responded that there were bondholders of several billion dollars who “would have something to say about it.” That argument settled the question.

The $61 million deficit refers to the city’s General Fund, which pays for municipal services. On the other hand, the Enterprise Fund relates to income-generating ventures. These include two airports, a major water system (the eighth-largest in the country), a power plant, the sewer system, cemeteries, a convention center, golf courses, parking lots, and public markets. Together these business activities make up a substantial percentage of the city’s total budget income and are a source of easy profits for wealthy bondholders. According to the 2002 annual financial report for the city of Cleveland, more than $110 million is scheduled next year in interest payments alone to bondholders in various “Enterprise Fund” projects.

Workers in Cleveland have been hard hit by the nationwide economic crisis. In her November 24 speech Campbell said, “Cleveland’s workforce has seen an 8 percent job loss from 2000 to 2002. Since January 2001, Cleveland has lost 23 manufacturing companies and a total of 9,482 jobs.” From the first quarter of 2001 to the first quarter of 2003, a total of more than 40,000 jobs were lost.

Instead of trying to provide jobs and relief for workers under conditions of rising unemployment, these facts are given as the reason to put more workers out in the cold. Campbell blames the “budget crisis” on the cost of workers’ wages and health-care benefits. “When I took office I inherited labor contracts that included an annual 3 percent, 3.5 percent, and 4 percent increases in wages paid to our employees,” she complained. “Health-care costs for city workers rose a staggering 29 percent.”

One member of SEIU Local 47 at the November 24 City Hall meeting said, “My daughter and I are custodians and she faces being laid off.” In addition to the prospect of layoffs, “They have threatened to raise our health-care monthly co-payment from $50 to $200. They want concessions from our unions…. The mayor says we all have to share the pain, but she isn’t going to feel any pain.”

According to Cedric Johns, president of CARE Local 1975, the city “closed down two out of three hospitals on the east side that have trauma care” in the past few years. Cleveland’s east side is predominantly Black and working-class. These neighborhoods are too far from trauma centers to get timely treatment for serious injuries, he noted. The city initially planned to cut 21 EMS jobs and six ambulances, reducing the number of ambulances to 15. “I estimate this would reduce average response time from 6 minutes to 15-20 minutes,” said Johns.

Despite the job cuts in the police department, the mayor made it clear this measure would not get in the way of her administration’s efforts to use the cops to keep working people in line. “Let me assure you that even after all the cuts are made, the number of police officers per capita in Cleveland will remain higher in Cleveland than all cities in Ohio,” she said.

Cleveland cops recently shot an unarmed man in the back four times for a traffic offense in an eastside working-class neighborhood. Stanley Strnad, killed November 15, was the 13th man shot by cops in this city in the last two years.  
 
 
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