Before Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) and his hand-picked emergency manager Kevyn D. Orr rushed the city’s bankruptcy filing to federal court last week, they refused to sit down and discuss the future of the city’s workers and retirees, AFSCME President Lee Saunders said this morning on "The Bill Press Show." He told Press:

They have not sat down and talked with the union at all in Detroit. They have refused to do so...to talk about how these issued can be resolved. They have said they’ve attempted to have these kinds of discussions. That is a bold-faced lie.

Orr has called for “significant cuts” to pensions for some 21,000 retired public employees and cuts in benefits and likely wages for current city workers. AFSCME and others have taken state court action against the bankruptcy filing, and Saunders says they will press for talks. In the meantime:

We will continue to take court action and we will continue to try to mobilize and organize our communities and members in the city of Detroit. We cannot run away from the fact there is a problem there. The question is how do you deal with this issue? How do you fix the problem?

Saunders also says he believes there is a role for the federal government to play.

Now I’m not suggesting there be a huge bailout, though the federal government did bail out Wall Street and they're one of the reasons we’re in this problem.

You can listen to the full interview here.

Although a judge in the Ingham County court did say the bankruptcy violates the state's constitution, once a bankruptcy filing is made in federal court, legal experts say it generally trumps other litigation in state courts.