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 »
Arizona: The New Wisconsin
Donna Gratehouse, who blogs at DemocraticDiva and elsewhere on all things Arizona, sends us this.
A slate of bills introduced in the Arizona Legislature this session would wipe out public-sector unions in our state. If Gov. Jan Brewer (R) signs them into law, which is likely, they would ban collective bargaining by public employees, end automatic payroll deductions for dues and prohibit compensation for performing union duties. These measures go even further than the union-stripping bills that enraged Wisconsinites last year and, unlike in Wisconsin, Arizona police and fire unions would not be exempted.
Conservatives and business groups in Arizona have been longing to dismantle public-sector unions for decades and are using the downturn in the state’s economy as an excuse to implement their anti-labor and anti-government agenda. Arizona has been a so-called right to work state since its inception and has one of the lowest percentages of unionized workers in the country already.
Leading the way on this assault on public workers is a Phoenix-based “think tank,” the Goldwater Institute, which was instrumental in drafting the bills under consideration.
Moreover, no less than elected officials, public employees are trustees of the power delegated by citizens to the government. Public-sector unions violate a basic public trust when they use collective bargaining to secure one-sided and obviously unsustainable benefits. For these reasons and others, the Goldwater Institute recommends that Arizona join North Carolina and other states that completely prohibit state and local government officials from contracting with public employee unions, requiring all employment relationships to be individually negotiated.
This is because individuals have far less leverage in negotiations than groups, obviously.
The Goldwater Institute is the Arizona affiliate of the State Policy Network, a national right-wing Read the rest of this entry »
Gov. Scott Set to Hand Florida’s Prisons to Corporate America
Donald Cohen, founder and executive director of In the Public Interest, a national resource center on privatization and responsible contracting, sends us this.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott and the Republican-controlled legislature are moving fast to privatize all 29 prison facilities in 18 counties in southern Florida.
Last year, the GOP prison privatization proposal was ruled unconstitutional because it was wrapped into a budget proposal, a violation of Florida laws that requires policy changes be in separate laws. Tallahassee Judge Jackie Fulford ruled that the lawmakers rushed the process.
The privatizers aren’t making the same mistake this time. Not only are they proposing to privatize the prisons but they are changing the law to be able to privatize any service as fast, as easily and as secretly as possible. Under the latest proposals, an agency would not have to report its privatization of a program or service until after the contract is signed. And they also would eliminate a current legal requirement to do a cost-benefit analysis before privatizing any government function.
Privatizing Services Can Be Costly to Workers and Government
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) and his Republican/tea party supporters—the same gang who imposed “financial martial law” on cities and towns and is pushing a “right to work” for less law—are at it again.
This time they want to fire 170 nursing assistants at a state-run veterans home in Grand Rapids—many of whom have worked at the home for decades—and hire a private company to provide workers.
They claim the move is to save money, but as The New York Times points out, “taxpayers can end up paying for the cuts in indirect ways” and studies show that outsourced, privatized government operations often end up costing more to operate than the government-run operations.
New Exposé Finds ALEC’s Fingerprints All Over Assault on Workers and Unions
The right-wing Koch brothers-funded and corporate-backed American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) created the battle plans behind state level legislation in more than two dozen states to strip public employees of the right to bargain for a better life, cripple their unions and privatize public services, according to a new investigative report by Beau Hodai at In These Times.
ALEC’s 501(c) (3) tax-exempt status strictly prohibits nonprofits like ALEC from taking part in the formation of legislation, but through legislators’ own files, obtained by public records requests, Hodai confirms for the first time exactly how ALEC provides “model legislation” to lawmakers.
These model bills, written by ALEC’s corporate members, are then used as the basis for drafting bills that aim to strip public employee unions of their ability to support political candidates, or even to collect dues at all—and that aim ultimately to privatize most functions of government. Writes Hodai:
An exhaustive analysis of thousands of pages of documents obtained through public records requests from six states, as well as tax filings, lobby reports, legislative drafts and court records, reveal that these suddenly popular anti-public employee bills, while taking different forms from state to state, were indeed disseminated as “model legislation” by ALEC.
This Money Trail Leads Straight to Prisons—Private Ones
After the November elections, with its raft of new Republicans in governors’ seats and in control of state legislatures, we’ve seen many of those states implement a corporate agenda that includes attacks on workers’ rights, new corporate tax cuts and privatization of state services.
Some of the biggest privatization prizes are state prison systems. A new report from AFSCME follows the money from corporations to the lawmakers who are now pushing lucrative prison privatization contracts in several states.
According to “Making a Killing: How Prison Corporations Are Profiting from Campaign Contributions and Putting Taxpayers at Risk,” the three largest private prison companies are The GEO Group Inc., Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and the Management & Training Corporation (MTC). Each election cycle, according to the report, these corporations:
pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into the campaigns of governors, state legislators and judges, in the hopes of advancing their political agenda—establishing more private prisons and reducing the number of public ones.
Report: Protecting the Public from Privatization Schemes
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In response to the fiscal crisis, many cash-starved state and local governments are considering privatizing core public assets, potentially costing thousands of jobs and decreasing the quality of service to the public.
A new report shows workers and interested community leaders how to make sure the public interest is protected and advanced when officials propose privatization schemes. “A Guide to Evaluating Public Asset Privatization,” published by the research group In The Public Interest, gives basic information about privatization deals, and provides examples of important questions that should be asked when officials propose privatizing public services.
Local and state governments have signed contracts to sell off many types of facilities and infrastructure, including government office buildings, landfills, transit systems, roads, parking structures, zoos, convention centers and other assets that could generate substantial capital. These new owners typically get to keep all or part of the revenue, such as advertising or concession revenue, increase fees or rents, and are responsible for maintenance.
68 Percent of Voters Frown on ‘Phasing Out’ Social Security
Attention, Rand Paul in Kentucky, Joe Miller in Alaska, Sharron Angle in Nevada and all you other Republican congressional candidates flopping around on the far right banks of the mainstream! Phasing out, privatizing or otherwise eliminating Social Security does not sit well with the vast majority of the voting public.
The latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds that 68 percent of voters are “uncomfortable” with candidates who espouse such notions. Uncomfortable is putting it nicely. It’s downright painful to listen to U.S. Senate wannabes and other Republican hopefuls “babble into the vapors” about phasing out Social Security (turnabout’s fair play, Alan Simpson!).
Trenton Voters Say ‘No’ to Private Water
Union and community activists in Trenton, N.J., rallied voters with door-to-door campaigning to beat back the New Jersey American Water Company’s nearly $250,000 advertising and mail blitz to privatize a prized and profitable part of the city’s water system.
In a referendum yesterday, voters rejected, 6,968 to 1,812, a proposal to sell to American Water the city’s municipally owned Trenton Water Works suburban infrastructure—pipes, water towers and tanks. Said Bob Houser of the Utility Workers (UWUA):
Selling off one of the community’s most valuable assets—its public water system—to a profit-driven corporation is a bad deal for Trenton.
Union Movement Rallies in Solidarity with Puerto Rican Workers
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| Thousands of workers rallied in Puerto Rico against the governor’s drastic layoffs. The sign says “Give me back my job.” | |
In states across the country, working people marched and rallied in solidarity today with their Puerto Rican brothers and sisters against draconian budget cuts and cancellation of their collective bargaining rights.
As 200,000 people march in San Juan, Puerto Rico, to protest Gov. Luis Fortuño’s plan to slash the budget deficit on the backs of workers, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka sent a letter of support and solidarity and rallies were held in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and other cities.
In his letter of support, which was read at the San Juan rally, Trumka said:
We are fully aware of the attacks being afflicted on the workers and their families on your island and we will do whatever we can to stop them. We are completely committed to bringing the full force of the AFL-CIO to fighting for the rights and well being of our affiliated unions, their members, and the people of Puerto Rico.
