The Privatization of Public Services, State by State
Donald Cohen, founder and executive director of In the Public Interest, a national resource center on privatization and responsible contracting, sends us this.
It seems there’s no public service or piece of property that private companies are not eyeing as potential revenue streams. While funding anti-government think tanks like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), companies like Corrections Corporation of America, Waste Management, Maximus, Intuit, Laidlaw, Northrup Grumman, Koch Companies, Macquarie Capital Advisers, Pinnacle West, and UnitedHealthcare are hoping to use government as their candy store.
They want to take over our roads, bridges, parking lots, water systems, college dorms, and prisons. And they want to deliver public services like transit systems, school cafeterias, trash and recycling pick up, mental health services and many others. The following is a quick scan of just some of the proposals.
Water
The Emergency manager of Flint, Mich., is considering selling off its water and sewer systems to the highest bidder. The systems are currently generating revenues for the city.
Long Island’s Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano’s proposal is proposing to privatize the county’s sewage treatment system. Mangano also announced the privatization of Long Island Bus company to Veolia Transportation.
The Texas Lower Colorado River Authority is selling 18 retail water and wastewater systems in the Hill Country and in its southeast service area to [Canada-based] Corix Infrastructure.
Schools
School districts across the country are planning to contract out custodial, clerical, cafeteria and bus Read the rest of this entry »
In Online Townhall, Mich. Gov. Snyder Opposes RTW
AFL-CIO Field Communications staffer Cathy Sherwin sends us this report.
Following the State of the State address last week, Michigan’s Gov. Rick
Snyder held an online town hall meeting. Participating on Twitter using the
hashtag #AskGovSnyder, union workers, the Michigan State AFL-CIO and progressive allies kept the questions coming – on jobs, needed infrastructure investments and education.
Many of the #AskGovSnyder tweets reflected priorities outlined in the Michigan 2012 Jobs Plan, introduced by Michigan State AFL-CIO President Karla Swift. The Jobs Plan has the support of a broad coalition of affiliate unions of the Michigan AFL-CIO and allies, including the Michigan League for Human Services, Progress Michigan and We Are the People. Many of the same organizations – and individual union members – joined in the Twitter Town Hall. The diverse voices asking tough questions were noted by Michigan Public Radio.
The Town Hall was also a great opportunity to educate the community on “right to work” for less. When Snyder answered a question by opposing “right to work,” workers and community groups spread the news far and wide. With extremist politicians in Michigan, as well as Indiana, New Hampshire and across the country pushing so-called “right to work,” educating the public about these unnecessary and divisive anti-worker laws couldn’t be more timely. Check out some of the #AskGovSnyder Tweets … and look for opportunities to #AskYourElectedOfficials about the issues that matter. Read the rest of this entry »
Solis to Receive Top Award at MLK Event
 |
Tonight in Detroit, where hundreds of activists are gathered for the annual AFL-CIO Martin Luther King Jr. Day Observance, participants will honor several individuals for their outstanding contributions to working people. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis will receive the top honor for her extraordinary dedication and commitment to improving the lives of workers throughout her lifetime. The At the River I Stand award is given to a national leader who has demonstrated an unyielding commitment to civil rights and workers’ rights.
Since her 2009 appointment as labor secretary, Solis has worked to end wage theft, improve job safety by holding employers accountable and spotlight abuses like sexual harassment, workplace violence and gender discrimination. She also has significantly broadened the department’s outreach by holding a series of webinars, parterning with Facebook to help people find jobs and launching an app to help workers track their hours and how much they should be paid.
Michigan Politicians Target Workers’ Comp
AFL-CIO Field Communications staffer Cathy Sherwin sends us this report.
Opponents of working people in Michigan are pushing a bill that would gut protections for workers hurt on the job and give employers more power to dictate where injured workers could seek treatment. The bill also would slash benefits by factoring in “imaginary” wages and pensions and deducting from benefits—reducing workers’ compensation by the amount someone might be able to earn, regardless of the availability of an actual job.
The bill, H.B. 5002, has passed the state House, and as legislators in the Senate took it up last week, they were faced with 150 police, firefighters, autoworkers and others packing the Senate hearing room and filling an overflow room to capacity as they described the H.B. 5002′s devastating impact on injured Michigan workers.
Michigan Public Radio quoted testimony by Chris Luty, with the Michigan State Police Troopers Association, that reinforced the dangers of subtracting imaginary wages:
What’s available out there—what’s really available out there—and what’s theoretically available out there are often two very different things.
In addition to the dozens who told their stories to the committee, many Read the rest of this entry »
Michigan House Votes to Gut Workers’ Comp
The Michigan House of Representatives voted yesterday to gut the state’s workers’ compensation system (H.B. 5002). Michigan State AFL-CIO President Karla Swift describes the bill as slashing benefits by:
subtracting “imaginary wages” and “imaginary pensions” from an injured worker’s benefits, regardless of the worker’s ability to find a job or afford retirement.
Further, Swift says, the bill:
also gives even more power to employers to dictate where an injured worker can seek treatment. It will create devastating changes to a workers’ compensation law that has been one of the best in the nation, with lower costs than other states in the Midwest and across the country.
Along with announced reductions in 2012 state compensation rates by an average of 7.4 percent, Swift says, “This will be the twelvth time in the past 16 years that rates have dropped.
Michigan Utility Workers Help Kids Ward Off Winter Winds
 |
Michael J. Smith, AFL-CIO Community Services liaison for United Way of Monroe County (Mich.), sends us this report.
Kids in Monroe, Mich., will be able to bundle up against the cold Michigan winter with new coats, thanks to Utility Workers (UWUA) Local 223 and DTE Energy. The workers and management at the Monroe Power Plant raised $1,600 to purchase coats that were then donated to the Salvation Army’s Coats for Kids program.
During the 11 years that the local union has taken part in the program, it has donated more than 1,000 coats, says Pete Burkit, co-chair of Community Action Committee.
In addition to collecting donations from the workers, including onsite Building Trades workers, the committee works with local merchants to get a discount, “so we can stretch our dollars,” says Linda Schmidt, the other co-chair of the committee.
Along with the new coats, 21 “gently used” were donated and then cleaned free of charge by a local dry cleaner.
AFL-CIO Community Services Helps Out Families in Bedford, Mich.
AFL-CIO Community Services liaison Michael Smith helped out with this event and sends us this report.
More than 400 families received free food in Bedford, Mich., over the weekend as part of an event coordinated by the Monroe-Lenawee AFL-CIO, the Monroe County United Way and the Monroe County Opportunity Program.
The people who reach out for help are so thankful, and we’re just trying to help them prepare for a long winter.
Throughout the morning, families pulled into the parking lot at Bedford High School, collecting boxes containing frozen meat, canned vegetables and rice.
New Report: So-Called Right to Work Is Wrong for Michigan
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) and his Republican/tea party supporters—the same gang that eliminated basic democratic rights of cities and towns by imposing a “financial martial law”—are at again. This time they are pushing a so-called right to work law as the answer to state’s foundering economy.
A new Economic Policy Institute (EPI) paper, “‘Right to work’: The wrong answer for Michigan’s economy,” by political economist Gordon Lafer, debunks the claims that backers of Michigan’s “right to work” for less law are peddling. They are the same phony stats and figures trotted out by its backers each time the issue comes up in state legislatures.
Such laws make it illegal for a group of unionized workers to negotiate a contract with union security clauses that require each employee who enjoys the benefit of the contract to pay his or her share of the costs of negotiating and policing it.
Repeal of Michigan’s Financial Martial Law Gains Steam
The drive to overturn Michigan’s “financial martial law” through a ballot initiative is close to securing enough signatures to qualify for a spot on the November 2012 ballot, nearly seven months before the deadline to file those signatures.
Michigan Forward, the group organizing the effort, reports its volunteers have gathered more than 120,000 signatures of the 161,304 needed to qualify.
The law was championed by Gov. Rick Snyder (R) and the Republican legislature and took effect in April. It allows Snyder to declare a “financial emergency” in a city or school district and appoint a manager with broad powers, including the ability to fire local elected officials, break teachers’ and public workers’ contracts, seize and sell assets, eliminate services—and even eliminate entire cities or school districts without any public input.
UAW Local Fundraiser Buys Phone Cards for Troops
Robert Cebina, president of UAW Local 723 in Monroe, Mich., sends us this on the local’s recent fundraising effort.
We recently raised $2,300 during a fundraiser to buy phone cards for U.S. troops overseas. We held the fundraising event, which included a silent auction raffle for donated items and a 50/50 raffle, at the UAW Local 723 Union Hall in Monroe, Mich.
Fundraisers to buy troops phone cards, called “Mikies Minutes,” came about after Sgt. Mike Ingram, who was killed in Afghanistan while on patrol, said there was never enough time to call home and not enough phone cards to go around.
UAW Local 723 Veterans Committee and union members played a key role in making this the first fundraiser for Mikies Minutes. It was headed up by Dana Forbes, a member of the Veterans Committee and the chairman at the Frenchtown JCIM plant one. Forbes is also a veteran of Desert Storm.
