PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center

Neo-liberal Agenda Advances in Pittsburgh
by stephen donahue Monday, Jun. 07, 2004 at 10:15 AM

Service cuts, regressive tax hikes and attacks on city workers obscure the gutting of city home rule and basic democratic process.

The neo-liberal makeover of Pittsburgh took another step forward on Friday the 4th of June when one of the two bodies that have been given the task of providing financial recovery for the beleaguered city took their plan to the public. The recovery plan prepared by the Act 47 coordinating team of Public Financial Management, Inc. and Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellott, LLC is over 200 pages long and contains a recipe for corrective action that is designed to make Pittsburgh look good to Wall Street bankers once more. Right now Pittsburgh’s investment grade is “junk bond” and the city is running out of money.

Politicians, financial planners, business leaders and others who call the shots because of their wealth have been consistent in stating that the fiscal crisis facing Pittsburgh can be a time of new birth for the city. These people have an agenda for the city and the Act 47 Recovery Plan spells it out. This plan: cuts public services, increases and implements new fees for other public services, increases already regressive local taxes, calls for the outsourcing of city custodial workers and the privatization of city mechanics, city refuse workers are forced to compete with private trash haulers for their jobs, health care benefits for city workers are reduced, union contracts are undercut and the city is encouraged to hire part time workers for whom no benefits are provided. The Act 47 Recovery Plan makes the city of Pittsburgh leaner and meaner. This is a prerequisite to once more finding favor on Wall Street.

The Act 47 Recovery Plan places a disproportionate burden on working class and poor Pittsburgh residents. The richest 20% of the city residents will feel no pain. The plan is big on wealth friendly (and poor unfriendly) taxes and it is obsessed with going after the city’s blue collar work force. It cuts the number of city swimming pools to 11 and the number of city recreation centers to 10. It fairness the plan does act to make every corporation in the city contribute more in way of taxes but it will be interesting to see how these corporations pass onto their work force the new .3% payroll tax and monthly head tax of $5.25 for each employee.

Opposition to this Act 47 plan and to an undemocratic oversight body called the Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority that is also reshaping Pittsburgh to benefit capital over people has been focused but shallow. Community activists and neighborhood leaders have risen to decry cuts and closings such as to swimming pools and rec centers but there has yet to be any broad based opposition to the whole fiscal recovery agenda and process. Unions representing city workers have argued against mandates that will hurt their members but none have yet to point out how the whole undermining of collective bargaining in the city is an attack on workplace democracy in the city.

Who is providing an analysis to help us to get beyond narrow self interest and move toward a critique of a whole movement that is taking away Pittsburgh’s home rule? Will the people of Pittsburgh continue to have access to a real and functioning city council or will Wall Street bankers rule us for now on via surrogates on unelected oversight boards? This is an important concern but it is hardly part of the mix right now.

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