Retired GM worker speaks on freezing death of 93-year-old Michigan man

[dcsmart]

By Jerry White
5 February 2009

Last week a funeral was held for Marvin Schur, the 93-year-old resident of Bay City, Michigan whose frozen body was found in his home on January 17. Schur died of hypothermia after the municipally owned utility company cut off electricity because of a $1,100 unpaid bill.

Even though nighttime temperatures had fallen to below zero in mid-January, the city placed a "limiter" on Schur's electric meter—a device designed to shut off power if a resident uses more than 10 amps of electricity. Nothing was done to instruct the old man, who suffered from dementia, on how to reset the device and restore limited service.

The painful and needless death and the callous response of city officials provoked outrage in the town of 34,000 people, about 100 miles north of Detroit, and triggered a flood of emails and phone calls to city hall from throughout the US and other countries.

In response to the public outcry, city officials—who had first tried to blame the death on Schur himself, and then his neighbors for failing to look after him—announced they were temporarily suspending the use of limiters and would not cut off electricity to any other homes until the winter was over. Limiters had been installed on 60 to 70 houses in the city.
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Marvin Schur, or "Mutts" as he was known, was retired, having labored as a pattern cutter for years at the Baker Perkins factory in Saginaw, which makes specialized machinery for the food industry. Born on April 30, 1915, he was a life-long resident of the area. He served as a medic with the US Army during World War II and was wounded in fighting in the Pacific.

After the funeral, Schur's nephew, 66-year-old William Walworth of Ormond Beach, Florida, told the Bay City Times that it was foolish to think that a "horrible" death like his uncle's couldn't happen again. He pointed out that snow and ice storms in the past days have left hundreds of thousands without power. "There's going to be a couple thousand more Marvin Schurs out there right now," Walworth said.

In addition to surviving family members and neighbors, several workers who did not know Schur personally attended his funeral last week out of a deep sense of social solidarity and anger over the sacrifice of a life for profit.
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Lyle Roussey, a retired General Motors worker from the Flint area in Michigan, spoke to the World Socialist Web Site after attending the service. He said, "The minister spoke, but he never mentioned the injustice that the utility company let this man die.

"After I left the funeral home I was interviewed by television and newspaper reporters. When they asked me why I was there, I told them, ‘I am here to protest. I can't believe that he froze to death. He could survive World War II but he couldn't survive the Bay City Electric Light & Power.' I said, ‘There should be thousands of people here to protest.'
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FULL ARTICLE
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/feb2009/bayc-f05.shtml