Introduction by Jane Slaughter

In early 2019 Detroit DSA published a bold plan to “make Detroit the engine of a Green New Deal.” The idea was to take the manufacturing expertise of the Rust Belt, combined with the environmental advantages of the Great Lakes region, and “solve the Rust Belt’s interlocking economic and ecological crises.”

We called for a federal “Great Lakes Authority,” modeled on the Tennessee Valley Authority established in the 1930s, that could marshal resources to fight climate change through the creation of hundreds of thousands of jobs. As the author wrote, “Massive amounts of green infrastructure must be built to avert climate catastrophe. It should be built here, in places like Detroit, where millions of people already have manufacturing expertise and experience.”

We also outlined the activism that led to the writing of our Green New Deal plan. It started with DSA-led protests over GM’s plan to close its Poletown plant, which drew 400 people. We called for the city, which in the 1980s had torn down whole neighborhoods to gift the land to GM, to take over the plant by eminent domain if necessary.

Coming out of a small group discussion at our chapter’s general meeting September 7, we reprint these articles as inspiring examples of thinking big and acting big to work to save the planet. Thanks to Aaron Stark for leading the political education discussion at the chapter meeting.

Making the Rust Belt Green Through a Federal Great Lakes Authority

Feb 25, 2019

By Natasha J. Fernández-Silber

Detroit DSA has begun organizing in earnest around a bold initiative to “Make the Rust Belt Green.” In collaboration with local elected officials and its coalition partners, Detroit DSA is calling for the creation of a new federal agency, in the vein of the Tennessee Valley Authority, called the “Great Lakes Authority.” The GLA would be a regional planning agency enacted under the umbrella of the “Green New Deal.” Its mandate: to bring green union jobs and economic development to the Midwest.

The Great Lakes Authority represents a credible way to bring back quality manufacturing jobs to the Midwest. Massive amounts of green infrastructure must be built to avert climate catastrophe. It should be built here, in places like Detroit, where millions of people already have manufacturing expertise and experience.

The Great Lakes region includes all of Michigan, as well as portions of Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. It is home to vast natural resources, including, most obviously, the Great Lakes, which contain over one-fifth of the freshwater on the planet, and provide potable water to over 40 million people. The region is also an agricultural powerhouse, with more than 55 million acres of productive land, and a bastion of low-carbon recreational options.

The Great Lakes region overlaps substantially with what has come to be known as the “Rust Belt.” As the grim moniker suggests, the Rust Belt has been ravaged for decades by free trade deals, deindustrialization, and corporate pollution. The region’s economy was further decimated in 2008 by the Great Recession, from which it has yet to recover.

This long economic decline has produced a host of calamities for the region. The Rust Belt has some of the oldest and most degraded infrastructure in the nation. Millions of its residents live without clean air, water, or both. Its abundant lakes, rivers, and ecosystems are increasingly under-protected. As desperation mounts, states have begun privatizing their natural resources. Michigan, for example, now authorizes Nestle to pump virtually unlimited amounts of groundwater from an aquifer in the western part of state. It uses that water to make hundreds of million of dollars in profits from its Ice Mountain bottled water brand. Meanwhile, the water crises in Flint and Detroit go unresolved.

There can be little doubt that targeted federal resources are required to solve the Rust Belt’s interlocking economic and ecological crises. And we need only look to the first New Deal to understand what is possible. In 1933, Congress created the Tennessee Valley Authority, the nation’s first regional planning agency. Its mandate was to bring jobs and economic development to the Tennessee Valley, a region particularly devastated by the Great Depression.

The region faced continual flooding, deforestation, and land erosion, and its rural residents lacked basic modern infrastructure like electricity and running water. In what is perhaps the most soaring success of the entire New Deal era, between 1933 and 1934 the TVA built 16 hydroelectric dams in the Tennessee Valley, which reduced flooding and soil erosion and provided electricity to millions of residents. By 1934, more than 9,000 people were employed through the TVA on these projects and others. Over time, the TVA evolved into the largest publicly-owned utility in the United States, and today services customers in Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia.

Like the TVA, the Great Lakes Authority (GLA) would be a regional planning agency designed to funnel federal resources (under local control) to the Rust Belt. Those funds would be devoted to large-scale green manufacturing (e.g., of electric buses, cars, and trains); retooling idled factories (like GM’s recently “unallocated” plants in Warren, Detroit, and Lordstown); green housing construction and weatherization; generating green, renewable energy (e.g., wind, solar, and hydro); repairing or replacing the water infrastructure in places like Flint and Detroit; building green infrastructure (green roofs, rain gardens, permeable pavements, etc.); bridge and road repairs; environmental assessments and remediation; sustainable agriculture; protecting fresh water sources and ecosystems; and ecotourism.

Frontline communities such as Detroit, Flint, and Gary would be prioritized and given additional resources. All persons employed by the GLA would make a living wage of $25 an hour, have the option to unionize, receive single-payer federal health insurance, and benefit from educational grants for skills training.

Centering the Great Lakes region — and Michigan and Detroit in particular — is essential to any package of green federal legislation. In so many ways, the ecological and economic “apocalypse” now being discussed as a motivator of a Green New Deal has already happened in the Rust Belt, particularly in post-industrial cities, in abandoned rural locales, and in indigenous communities. No one in America needs a Green New Deal more than than we do, and no one is more willing to fight for it. That’s why for years activists in these communities have been calling for a racially just, green, regenerative, non-extractive, sustainable economy. Their vision should serve as the organizing principle of the Great Lakes Authority and the entire movement for a Green New Deal.

There is much public fascination with the idea that Detroit is now experiencing a “comeback.” But by many metrics (poverty rates, employment statistics, blight rates, etc.), there is no economic recovery happening at all. Most of the investment and “development” in the city has been cosmetic and to the benefit of developers and a handful of millionaire and billionaires. A regional Green New Deal proposal in the form of a Great Lakes Authority would encompass the kind of bold public policy solutions that would deliver a real comeback for Detroit.

Not only is the Great Lakes Authority smart environmentally and economically, it also makes political sense. A proposal to create green manufacturing jobs through the GLA would have broad appeal among displaced blue-collar voters, including those who sat out the 2016 election, or who may have voted for Trump (in part) because of his false promise to bring back manufacturing jobs. As the 2020 presidential cycle approaches, it would behoove all of the candidates vying for battleground states like Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin to sign onto a bold, regionally-targeted jobs proposal such as the Great Lakes Authority.

It’s time to meet the dire crises of the moment with the boldness that is required. This is not rocket science, and we’ve done it before. Let’s harness our nation’s federal resources to restore this great region’s economy and ecology, and turn the Rust Belt Green through a Great Lakes Authority.

Making the Rust Belt Green Through a Federal Great Lakes Authority was originally published in The Detroit Socialist on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The struggle over the length of the working day is nearly as old as capitalism itself. During the Industrial Revolution, American workers clocked in for brutal 80-100 hour work weeks until socialists, communists, and anarchists began unionizing their workplaces, and organizing worker strikes around the eight hour work day. The police violently cracked down on the strikers, one example being the 1886 Haymarket Massecre, where a bomb blast set off a barrage of police gunfire. Eight anarchist labor activists were arrested without any evidence, and seven of them were hanged. Their efforts eventually culminated in the creation of the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1940.

However, as capitalists have chipped away at unions and New Deal reforms over the decades, we find ourselves inching back towards square one. 52% of adults employed full time in the U.S. report working more than 40 hours per week. The growing gap between productivity and compensation has been well-documented.

American workers are producing more than ever, but earning less than they did 50 years ago, after adjusting for inflation. Many of us are having to pick up multiple jobs just to make ends meet. Workers are even having their overtime pay denied (stolen), costing some households $35,451/year. On top of this, there’s a growing pay gap between the labor aristocracy and the essential workers providing the hard labor that keeps the economy afloat. What can we do?

In March of 2024, Sen. Bernie Sanders announced he will introduce legislation to change our workweek standard from 40 hrs to 32 hrs with no loss in pay. This would be a revolutionary change that would make sure workers benefit from our increased productivity in this country.

This bill would reduce the maximum hours threshold for overtime from 40 to 32 hours. Workers would be paid time and a half for work days longer than 8 hours and double for work days longer than 12. The bill would also ensure that workers’ pay would not be reduced along with the reduction of hours.

What we need is to build support in the Senate and the House by activating voters, and organizing the working class to build strong unions.

“I know when my members look back on their lives, they never say, ‘I wish I would have worked more.’ When people reach the end of their lives, they never say, ‘I wish I made more money.’ What they wish for is they wish they had more time.”

– Shawn Fain, President of UAW

32 HOURS A WEEK WORKS

It’s pretty obvious that working less hours in a week is nice for the workers, but it’s also better for the workplace in general.

A 32 hour work week pilot was done in the UK in 2022. It involved 61 organizations over a period of 6 months. These orgs reported overwhelmingly positive feedback to the pilot. They reported that staff well-being improved, staff turnover reduced, and recruitment rate went up. All of which helped to improve productivity in the workplace. The pilot worked out so well that 54 of those orgs (89%) continued the policy at least a year after the pilot and 31 of them (51%) made the four day work week permanent.

When you think about it, this all makes perfect sense. Right now we are so overworked that we struggle to find time for ourselves outside of work. Taking back an extra day in the week frees up enough time for us to relax, socialize, and it helps with mental and physical health which means when we do go back to work, we feel less miserable. Even though we currently work 40 hours a week, we rarely actually do 40 hours worth of work. Spending less time at the workplace will not actually reduce the amount of work we can get done, so there’s no reason to keep us there for so long.

From the cubicles to the factory floor, service workers, sex workers, and everyone in between. Workers should fight to make this change and take back their time!

The post The Case for a 32 Hour Work Week Has Never Been Stronger appeared first on Grand Rapids Democratic Socialists of America.

By Mike Nutt

We have family in England. A merciful vacation at an idyllic homestead in rural Devon awaits me there. There will be sheep. It will be overcast and cool while it is hot and unbearable in Raleigh. 

I mutter synonyms for 'radical' and 'leftist' at the laptop as I search for bookstores near the small towns we're visiting. Predictably, the results on the map are long train rides away from our destinations.

Something unexpected, though. Better. The Socialist Workers Party is having its annual Marxism Festival in London the day before we fly back to the States from Heathrow. Such things are not luck; they are synchronicities, and all good socialists must learn to recognize them, ride them. 

With my partner's blessing, on Saturday, July 6, I get up early to peel away from the family. They will visit Arundel Castle's Medieval Festival. I am dragging large suitcases closer to our hotel by LHR. 

I get to the Emsworth train station early. I eat a delicious sausage roll from the local baker. I have my pick of seats when the train arrives. There is nothing to see, say, or sort, despite the constant security reminders. I relax and look out the window.

Three trains later, I leave my luggage in the basement of the Simpli Fresh convenience store in central London. Unburdened, I walk towards Marxism Festival 2024 at the University College of London.

On Thursday, July 4, the first day of Marxism Festival 2024 (MF24), England's Conservative party suffers a historic loss, ending 14 years of rule. I am attending the festival two days later on Saturday. One of the first people I see is an old man wearing an old t-shirt that says "FUCK THE TORIES." I resolve to also wear punk shirts as an old man.

Labour's win is hardly impressive, however, earning fewer total votes than in its last election. The festival's organizers, the Trotsykyist Socialist Workers Party [1], have already dismissed Keir Starmer as a typical agent of neoliberalism. A speaker on Saturday name-checks Jeremy Corbyn (a MF24 speaker himself, on the topic of poetry) as "one of five independent Members of Parliament (MPs) elected to the left of Labour." Speakers and audience members dissect the loss of the Tories throughout the day, and there is an obligatory cheer for their downfall at every talk. 

This overcast and cool Saturday is also one day before the second round of National Assembly elections in France, where the far-right will underperform expectations. But today, we don't know that, and I see dozens of people race-walking to get a good seat at one of the first talks of the day, "France: Le Pen, Fascism and the Popular Front" by Denis Godard.

I find the location of my first session, which is in a building called Cruciform. I am the first to sit down for Julie Sherry's presentation, "Coal Mines to Call Centres: Has the Working Class Lost its Power?" Sherry is a former lead labor organizer for the SWP. She is sitting behind a small table at the front of a lecture hall, without shoes, waiting for her facilitator to arrive. The tube is running late.

Sherry's answer to the question posed in her talk title is that, no, the gig economy has not made the coal mining trade unionism of the past irrelevant, though of course circumstances are different so tactics should change. She pinpoints a dynamic in modern movements: people are highly motivated to demand an end to injustice but have low levels of class-consciousness and little experience with organizing for working-class power.

Therefore, Sherry explains, socialist labor organizers must be ready to join, support, and have mutually beneficial relationships with social justice movements like the Palestinian freedom movement or Black Lives Matter. The movement for a free Palestine (or any movement) can be an entry point for unions to address social problems by building working class solidarity and demonstrating the power of direct democracy. Yes, it is genocide. Yes, resistance is justified in an illegal occupation. Now, what are we going to do about it, together? Sherry is the first person in the day to say that socialists should "be stuck in to" every fight. This is the way to build trust and influence in our communities and to ultimately cultivate more revolutionaries.

The next meeting is with Lewis Nielson, one of the authors of the SWP's new book. He and Sophia Beach have just completed a crisp and powerful 80 page pamphlet entitled Why You Should Be a Socialist: the Case for Revolution (WYSBaS) [2]. All three of the talks I will see today purposefully revolve around themes from the book, an impressive display of party unity. The speakers reinforce and unpack themes from WYSBaS, but with a sharp focus on recent and looming elections, their importance, and the limitations of elections in general for Marxists.

Nielsen is a good speaker. His talk, "Party and Class: What Kind of Organization do We Need?" runs through some of the book's main points. He charges through his speech with only a couple glances at his notes. The SWP, says Nielson, should proudly declare themselves revolutionaries. Conditions change through rupture, not the incrementalism and reform of a limited representative democracy. Electoralism is not a strategy that can win.

From WYSBaS:

"...the reality is that socialism can't come from above through parliament" (p42). "...what really matters in society is not what happens in parliament, but what happens on the streets and communities and, above all, in our workplaces" (p48).

Still, says Nielson, elections are not unimportant. It matters who wins because they can create more or less favorable conditions for non-electoral organizing. The SWP even allows for strategic collaboration with the capitalist workers party, Labour. "Any serious revolutionary should look to work with Labour Party members in joint campaigns and struggles whenever possible" (p47). Nielson's assertion that election outcomes matter seems to imply approval of a united front with liberals against the fascist threat represented by Reform UK, the National Rally in France, and presumably the Republicans in the United States (Nielson predicted a Trump victory a week before he was an assassination target. He also stressed the ongoing threat from fascist elements in the UK, despite Reform UK's drubbing. A month later, the country erupted in race riots).

The most blood-pumping part of the speech is when Nielson takes a turn calling for socialists to be stuck in to every fight. The Socialist Workers Party must be a party of member-leaders, where the rank and file member is empowered to take the initiative necessary to organize the unorganized at the local level. Only a revolution from the bottom up will have legitimacy and democracy. Yes, comrade Lewis.

The movement for a free Palestine is on everyone's lips and the movement is in the London streets that weekend.

Palestine is all over the program, from the Palestine 101 session first thing Thursday July 4 to Sunday's closing rally on "Resistance in a world of imperialism and crisis." I force myself to buy only one Palestine-related book in the Bookmarks pop-up store, a biography of Leila Khaled [3].  

Lewis Nielson notes early in his talk the incredible radicalizing power the movement for Palestine has had. He notes a poll: 54 percent of young people in England now say Israel doesn't have the right to exist. This would have been unimaginable on October 6, he says.

At noon there is a break in the conference and I march with one hundred thousand Londoners——including at least a thousand socialists, conservatively——to demand a Free Palestine. [4] I am wearing my Democratic Socialists of America Labor shirt. We ruck and chant and wait and dance and make demands in the streets for two hours. 

I skip the culminating rally by the Thames to eat and get back to the conference. I try to find a pub for some food and a pint on the 45 minute walk back to the College, but all the tables are full or reserved. England is playing Switzerland in the Euro football championship.

My last talk of the day is in the enormous and impossible-to-find Chris Ingold chemistry building auditorium XLG2. Joseph Choonara delivers "Revolutionaries, Elections and the Way Forward." Choonara asks, "How do we use the election tactic?" He reminds us Lenin said that until you're ready to seize power, it's obligatory to participate in elections. However, "mass working class struggle from below is our tradition." In any case, the game is rigged. Reformists are better at winning elections than revolutionaries because they drop their principles to win elections.

In a best case scenario, Choonara says elections allow Marxists to raise working class consciousness, gauge where the working class is at, and "generalize and spread our ideas." Still, he cautions that people can be put off from a tactic by bad experiences. I think of DSA and its avoidance of long-shot socialists in the electoral sphere. 

To close his portion of the talk, Choonara puts his palms on the large table in front of him and leans into his parting shot: "No honeymoon for Starmer."

After each main speaker of the day, there is an audience engagement portion of the hour. We are instructed to turn to our neighbors to discuss our thoughts on the topic at hand for three minutes. Then, we raise their hands to be recognized to address the whole room. It is during this last audience-interaction moment that my Festival experience reaches a climax. 

The talks have been consistent throughout the day, along with the responses from the attendees and my conversations with strangers. I have read three WYSBaS chapters between sessions. I'm ready to raise a specific question to...someone, but I resolve not to be the one American DSA guy who makes a fool of himself challenging all of XLG2 to explain themselves. I turn to the three in the row above and behind me.

"I'm sorry, I'm American and not a Party member. May I ask a question? Throughout the day, people have only talked about national elections. Does the SWP have a strategy for local elections?"

The three SWP members stare silently at me for a socially awkward amount of time. The woman with short hair and a nose piercing to my right says, "Well, it's just a much different system than in the US." The brunette guy agrees. For a beat, no one elaborates further. I'm holding my tongue, practicing my organizer listening skills, trying not to be the stupid American, waiting to see if they will fill the silence. The third in my group, an old man in a tweed beret, eventually says "Palestine is the most important issue." He says Palestinian freedom is a national, not local, issue. 

Just then, the meeting chair interrupts to tell us to wrap up. The four of us are silent for a few moments more. I'm trying to figure out why my question is being dismissed so easily. 

I turn back to the man in the beret. "Can I ask you another question, since you mentioned Palestine?" He rolls his eyes dramatically but leans forward on his arms and looks at me and waits. "I understand we have different systems, but are there no local opportunities for BDS [6] of Israel, where local politicians could pursue divestment in municipal budgets, for example?" It's not a great question; it doesn't get to the theoretical rationale for a national-only electoral tactic. But it keeps the man in the beret talking.

He starts telling a story about an MP whom the SWP supported but couldn't keep in line and who ended up a corrupt disappointment. Strangely, the story seems to be proving that national MPs are too distant to be held accountable. As he’s getting into the story, the chair calls us back to hear Choonara's response to the audience comments. 

When Choonara is done, I bound into the aisle. The man in the beret calls after me, "Aren't you going to let me finish what I was saying?" I wave and say, "No, thank you." I walk out of the lecture hall fairly certain that the Socialist Workers Party of England has a giant contradiction in its blind spot.

As I take the evening tube to my hotel, I think hard about the meetings I attended and the contradictions I saw at their center The Socialist Workers Party made a good case for revolution, but it was silent on how a revolutionary is supposed to approach local elections. The book, the speakers, my lecture hall neighbors...no one seemed to think local elections are "common struggles" worth our time. If elections matter and socialists need to be in every fight and we have to build from the bottom up, then socialists need to be running for municipal offices. 

If we're building from the bottom up, we cannot ignore the local opportunities to build strong, radicalizing relationships through bottom-up elections. If radicals are going to use the electoral tactic at all, it must be deployed at the local level. You are not stuck in to every fight if you are ignoring local elections.

A few months before leaving for England, I discovered Murray Bookchin through Jackson Rising Redux, a book of essays about the radicals at Cooperation Jackson who are building cooperatives and dual power [6] in Mississippi. Bookchin once said, "The overriding problem is to change the structure of society so that people gain power. The best arena to do that is the municipality—-the city, town, and village—-where we have an opportunity to create a face-to-face democracy." [7] He did not mean that simply voting in the town council election will change society. Rather, he was identifying a social-geographic place of power where socialists can best exercise people-power across a range of democratic projects, including elections. 

The Triangle DSA's recent electoral successes demonstrate how socialists can win seats in city councils, where we can not only "generalize and spread our ideas" but have positive material impacts on the lives of the working class which can be directly attributed to socialist praxis. In Durham, "we endorsed the electoral campaign of Nate Baker--a DSA member, whose campaign was managed by a DSA cadre and chapter HGO...Our elected officials have held the line on Palestine with total discipline: Nate Baker’s first action as a Durham City Council member was to call for a ceasefire and we secured the first ceasefire resolution passed in North Carolina with the help of DSA cadre and Carrboro town councilor Danny Nowell." [8]

This coming Raleigh town council election is the most exciting in my 11 years as a city resident, with two self-identified socialists on the ballot endorsed by our Triangle chapter. This is the first time I'll be able to vote for a candidate I first met as a comrade organizing in the community. Reeves Peeler's story and campaign represent a model for how socialists can raise up local organizers to claw back the trust of the working class, too battered to care about voting for yet another pro-gentrification Democrat. 

Similarly, I am proud of our chapter's overwhelming endorsement of town council incumbent Mary Black. As one comrade noted after her endorsement meeting, she has "a clear fighter's spirit, being driven by a clear antipathy to the current political order and a desire to see a different, better world in its place. She's been a clear, public leader in Raleigh willing to take risks on Palestine even in a conservative district."

Socialism from below must do more to foster the delegation of individuals from our midst to positions of power in our local institutions. From public school Parent Teacher Associations to Citizen Advisory Councils and our own peoples movement assemblies. That means clear-headed engagement in local politics when conditions are right. The trick will be to recognize when the conditions are right.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Workers_Party_(UK)

[2] https://socialistworker.co.uk/product/wysbasbook/

[3] Leila Khaled: Icon of Palestinian Liberation by Sarah Irving. My English copy has the cover shown here, which is much better than the American one. https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20140601-leila-khaled-icon-of-palestinian-liberation/

[4] Other socialist orgs were represented at the march, including the Socialist Equality Party who wrote this report: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/07/07/qisb-j07.html

[5] Boycotts, divestment and sanctions. https://bdsmovement.net/get-involved

[6] See Dual Power Then and Now: From the Iroquois to Cooperation Jackson by the ROAR Collective

https://roarmag.org/magazine/dual-power-then-and-now-from-the-iroquois-to-cooperation-jackson/

[7] "Interview with Murray Bookchin" by David Vanek. https://social-ecology.org/wp/2001/10/harbinger-vol-2-no-1-%E2%80%94-murray-bookchin-interview/

[8] https://www.dsanc.org/leftangles/2023/12/31/nyreport23

by Jonathan Mukes

A case study of rampant destructive behavior by corporations in Detroit is Marathon Oil and Marathon Petroleum. On September 4 around 200 Teamster members at Marathon’s refinery in southwest Detroit went on strike, demanding job security and a 6% wage increase to combat inflation. Marathon’s disregard for both its workers and the residents of Detroit is longstanding.

Not So Humble Beginnings

Marathon was initially called “The Ohio Oil Company” in 1887. John D. Rockefeller was dominating the oil industry in the state, spending vast amounts of money to obtain factories and refineries.

Rockefeller focused on cutting costs and undercutting the competition, as well as illegal corporate espionage and price wars, which damaged workers who found themselves in a volatile labor market. This tactic of rapid consolidation and heavy-handed market tactics eventually earned Rockefeller the title of most wealthy man in America.

This aroused suspicion from the general public as well as the Ohio state government, which at this time had a much stricter stance on anti-trust laws. Ohio forced the separation of “Standard Oil” and “The Standard Oil Of Ohio.” Later the Supreme Court stepped in and applied the Sherman Antitrust Act, which at the time was primarily used against labor unions, to split Standard Oil into 43 different entities including Exxonmobil, Chevron, BP, and The Ohio Oil Company.

After The Ohio Oil company bought Transcontinental Oil, they rebranded and began calling themselves Marathon in 1962.

The Detroit Refinery

Drawn to the Motor City by the booming auto industry, tens of thousands of Black people fled the Jim Crow South and moved into the area’s modest homes in the 1950s and ’60s, becoming first-time homeowners. For many of them, a century after slavery and still in the midst of segregated schools and neighborhoods, the American Dream was finally within grasp. At this point the refinery in Detroit was increasing in size every decade since the rebranding.

Marathon’s refinery in Detroit stands as a major contributor to environmental degradation in the area, worsening the already rising rates of respiratory illnesses . Detroit, with some of the nation’s highest asthma rates, witnesses a glaring discrepancy in health outcomes: adults in the city are 46% more likely to suffer from asthma compared to the wider Michigan populace. Emitting approximately 140,000 barrels of oil daily, the refinery releases an array of 29 hazardous chemicals, posing health risks to the predominantly Black and Hispanic, low-income residents residing in its vicinity. The Environmental Protection Agency has identified benzene and dioxin emissions from the refinery, both recognized carcinogens, further compounding the health hazards. The remaining 27 toxins contribute to the surge in respiratory diseases, including asthma, as well as liver failures observed in the community.

Residents deal with elevated incidences of asthma, cancer, neurological impairment and cardiovascular diseases. The presence of pollutants such as lead, which is extremely hazardous to children, underscores the desperate need for action. The effects of air pollution claim the lives of over 650 individuals annually in Detroit. For many residents, the prospect of relocating remains an impossible dream, destroyed by financial issues. With an average household income hovering around $24,000, families encounter barriers to seeking homes in less contaminated areas.

Even for those capable of considering moving, the reality remains, since the residential properties remain unsold. The strategic and purposeful acquisition of homes by Marathon during its expansion initiatives, such as the 2012 expansion in Oakwood Heights, which was done in order to increase capacity, shows the company’s ability to buy land for further development. While at the same time, majority black neighborhoods need to fight for years for buyouts, as evidenced by the mistreatment of communities like Boynton on the refinery’s southwest side.

The illnesses endured by these marginalized communities are not confined to chemical pollutants but extend to the influence of the systemic racism that widely exists within policies and across societal practices. Within Detroit, the contamination of the environment is simply the price demanded for the accumulation of wealth, where capital accumulation and power dynamics have consistently overshadowed consideration of the welfare and lives of the city’s inhabitants. Industry’s relentless intrusion has exacted a profound toll, regardless of vocal opposition from residents.

Throughout all of this the financially strained city of Detroit offered support to Marathon’s expansion in 2007, granting a $175 million tax break. In exchange, Marathon committed to enhancing local employment opportunities, prioritizing the hiring of Detroit residents. Revelations emerged in 2014, however, that only a fraction of newly created positions were being filled by city residents. Of the 514 jobs that Marathon could offer after the expansion, only 30 went to Detroit residents. This highlights the consistent, glaring disparity between promised benefits and realized outcomes.

Rashida Tlaib’s Civil Disobedience

In 2013, the residents of Detroit were confronted with the discovery of heaps of black ash, identified as petroleum coke or “petcoke,” lining the banks of the Detroit River. Originating as a byproduct of Marathon’s oil refining processes, petcoke’s toxicity renders it unfit for domestic combustion, prompting its export for international sale. The extraction of this waste by a company affiliated with the billionaire Koch brothers highlights the cross-section between corporate interests and environmental exploitation. Residents were further bothered by the sight of trucks transporting the ash without reasonable containment measures. In a bold display of civil disobedience, then-state representative Rashida Tlaib trespassed onto the site to gather samples for analysis, which then revealed the presence of hazardous chemicals such as vanadium and selenium. Selenium ingestion is associated with a spectrum of symptoms including bronchitis, nausea, headaches, and abdominal distress.

Researchers have studied the implications of systemic oppression perpetuated by the energy sector, particularly evident in the life-threatening illnesses and burdens imposed upon communities of color residing near oil and gas facilities. Manifesting through a series of health, economic, and social hazards, this systemic inequity intensifies existing vulnerabilities of marginalized populations. The disproportionate exposure of African American communities to harmful air pollution adds to the severity of health risks, a phenomenon exacerbated by heightened poverty levels.

The placement of high-polluting facilities within or in close proximity to communities of color further exacerbates the unequal distribution of health impacts. Marathon’s conduct over the past decades, disregarding state air pollution control regulations on multiple occasions, highlights its indifference to the well-being of low-income Black and Hispanic communities residing in the vicinity of its refinery in southwest Detroit. With repeated violations of emissions limits for fine particulate matter, carbon monoxide, and hydrogen sulfide, Marathon has directly imperiled the health of working-class residents, exacerbating Detroit’s notorious status as the asthma capital of the United States.

Accountability and Consequence

Despite being held accountable through three separate consent orders issued by the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE), Marathon’s actions betray a pattern of disregard for regulatory oversight and community welfare. The penalties imposed, totaling $243,353, pale in comparison to the profits reaped by the company, revealing a gross imbalance in accountability and consequence. Marathon exploits legal loopholes such as the Air Pollution Control Exemption program, effectively evading substantial tax liabilities on acquired properties intended for pollution mitigation efforts. This maneuver further deprives local governments of much-needed tax revenue, undermining essential services and public education that should serve as lifelines for communities disproportionately affected by the refinery’s noxious emissions.

Examining Marathon’s environmental transgressions across multiple states reveals a concerning pattern of contempt for both legal regulations and community well-being. For instance, in April 2023, the California refinery violated pollution regulations, resulting in a $27.5 million fine. Despite being designed for renewable fuels, this refinery emitted nitrous oxides, contributing to ground-level ozone, acid rain, and health issues like respiratory problems and visual impairment. Similar challenges were faced in Texas in January of this year, where the El Paso County Commission unanimously voted to challenge Marathon’s refinery permit renewal because of excessive pollution.

In 2022, Marathon’s emissions included over 800,000 tons of carbon dioxide and methane, major contributors to climate change. Studies reveal the detrimental effects on nearby communities, particularly in Texas, where residents within 10 miles of a refinery suffer from higher cancer rates, worsened by lower household incomes. Over 30% of Texans near refineries have annual incomes below $37,000, a disturbing correlation between industrial pollution and economic vulnerability.

Teodoro Obiang, President of Equatorial Guinea

Support for Nationalist Dictators

The disregard for human life displayed by Marathon extends beyond the borders of the United States, delving into the heart of Equatorial Guinea. Under the grip of Teodoro Obiang, the country has been entrenched in corruption, repression, and impoverishment for decades despite its oil wealth..The billions in oil revenue, instead of benefiting the people, serve as a means for Obiang and his inner circle to amass personal fortunes, leaving the citizens deprived of education and healthcare. Many of those billions and millions were directly given to Obiang by Marathon Oil, before it split from Marathon Petroleum.

Equatorial Guinea’s status as the fourth-largest oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa has attracted significant foreign investment, particularly from oil giants like Marathon. The complicity of these corporations in perpetuating a regime marked by human rights abuses and economic exploitation is morally bankrupt. Despite some semblance of cooperation with investigations, secrecy surrounds their dealings and the significant payments made directly to the dictator.

The Challenge to Corporate Exploitation

In the grand scheme of Marathon’s profit-driven decisions, the lives of Black and Brown working-class individuals seem disposable, sacrificed at the altar of shareholder dividends. Amidst this reality, a glimmer of hope emerges in the form of organized labor action. The recent decision by Marathon workers, represented by the Teamsters Union, to authorize a strike speaks volumes about the power dynamics at play and the potential for collective action to challenge corporate exploitation.

Labor action is not just about securing fair wages and working conditions; it is also about asserting dignity and demanding accountability from corporations that prioritize profits. The workers’ demands, such as pay increases to match inflation and changes in work schedules, reflect a broader struggle for economic justice. Importantly, labor action can intersect with environmental advocacy in profound ways. The hazardous working conditions and environmental risks posed by Marathon’s operations are linked, as highlighted by union president Steve Hicks about safety hazards at the Detroit refinery. “This plant, it takes anywhere from two to three years to train someone to do this job,” he said. “They have scabs in there. It’s not safe for the citizens of Detroit. They need to put our workers back in.”

By mobilizing around labor demands, workers have the opportunity to leverage their collective power to address not only immediate workplace issues but also broader environmental concerns. In demanding safer working conditions, workers are also advocating for healthier communities and environmental stewardship. Expanding the scope of labor action to include environmental demands can galvanize broader support from environmental activists, community organizers, and concerned citizens, creating a formidable coalition capable of challenging corporate interests. As we navigate the complex cross-section of labor rights and environmental justice, it becomes increasingly evident that our struggles are interconnected.

Jonathan Mukes is Chair of Detroit DSA’s Black and Brown Alliance

Marathon Oil: Rampant Destruction of Jobs, Safety and Environment was originally published in The Detroit Socialist on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.