public sector

'Why Privatize? We Can Run It Better!'

— Dave Cohen

“Why privatize? We can run it better!” That’s the question United Electrical Workers Local 274 and the Office and Professional Employees (OPEIU) asked when their wastewater treatment plant was threatened with privatization.

The city council—called a Selectboard—in Montague, Massachusetts, a town of 8,500 in the western part of the state, was concerned about the treatment plant because it had lost a large industrial customer. But the Selectboard never thought to ask the people who worked there what to do.

Instead, it solicited bids to privatize the plant in hopes of saving the town money. Soon four companies had handed in proposals, most of which promised big savings. Because of intense pressure from union members, none of the proposals called for layoffs or wage cuts (except, perhaps, cuts in management).

Montague has an unusual governance structure that allows for ample public input. Five elected Selectboard members meet weekly, and the town budget is voted on at representative town meetings of 150 people elected from precincts. The unions knew they had to take their case to the public.

PACK THE HOUSE

The Selectboard held public hearings on the proposal to privatize, and these hearings were broadcast live on the local cable TV station.

Union members made sure they packed the audience to hear the companies present their proposals on how they would run the facility.

But the companies never discussed how they would be paid. When the time came for questions, the unions immediately asked, “How much are you going to make for running the facility?”

After much beating around the bush, the largest company answered that it would receive 10 percent of the operating budget as its “fee.” Union members in the audience pointed out that this gave the companies the incentive to increase the budget instead of cutting costs.

Many of the Selectboard members thought that if the facility was privatized the company would assume all costs. Under intense questioning by the union, the companies admitted that the town would pay for repairs and replacement parts, such as generators and pumps.

This was the moment the unions were waiting for. They asked for time to create a proposal for more efficient ways to run the plant. The bosses, who had assured the Selectboard they had done everything possible to cut costs, were outraged.

The fight against privatization must be made public and held in public—people support public facilities that they think are well-run.

The Selectboard agreed, their faith in privatization shaken by the disclosures of how the privatizers made their money, and by the looming costs for repairs.

THE UNION PLAN

For the next several weeks, the union members worked on their proposal. The only guideline: no wage, benefit, or job cuts. The workers voted to exclude management from the planning sessions because the plant manager was the person who had first proposed privatization.

Both UE members (who operated the plant) and OPEIU members (who handled the clerical work and laboratory testing) participated. Many of the proposals were ideas they had pushed management to try for many years. Workers made lists of their ideas, hashed through them in meetings, and threw away plenty.

The clerical workers wrote up the winning ideas in easy-to-understand language for the Selectboard and the public, who didn’t understand how the facility actually worked.

The result was a detailed report calling for higher usage and earnings by processing waste from other communities, and process and machine changes that would cut costs for maintenance, electricity, and chemicals.

For example, the privatizers claimed that since they were large corporations, they could buy chemicals in large quantities, and therefore more cheaply. Union members countered that Montague could join an existing consortium of small towns that bought chemicals together—and save thousands of dollars.

The workers’ plan was challenged, of course, by the privatizers at another televised hearing. The evidence, however, was overwhelming that union members had developed a cost-saving plan that did not involve wage or job cuts and that kept the facility on a non-profit basis.

In the end, one Selectman’s plea that “everyone knows big business runs things better” was greeted with chuckles, mockery, and a vote to keep the plant public.

SOME LESSONS LEARNED

• The fight against privatization must be made public and held in public—people support public facilities that they think are well-run. They don’t like overpaid bureaucrats and waste.
• Turn the focus back on management. Talk about eliminating or trimming executive salaries.
• Develop a union proposal on how money can be saved and efficiency improved without cutting jobs or pay. In Montague, workers consulted everyone from the electric company to the federal government and got useful advice.
• Look to the community. Churches and activists can turn out valuable help.
• Emphasize that privatizing a public service means adding a new and unacceptable cost: profit.

[David Cohen is a representative for the United Electrical Workers in Massachusetts.]

New York School Aide Booted from Ballot

— Mischa Gaus

Tripping up an insurgent campaign among school aides, American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Local 372 disqualified in mid-November a dissident candidate for the union’s executive board.

Tony Ferina sought election to the school aide chapter chair in the local, part of AFSCME District Council 37, one of the nation’s largest public sector unions.

Ferina had announced his intention to seek office next spring in Local 372’s election on the “Mail Ballot” slate, which campaigns on a good-governance platform and calls on the local to provide members a ballot at their home. Members from all five boroughs currently must travel to Manhattan to vote, where polls are open for nine hours.

The three-term president of the local, Virginia Montgomery-Costa, won re-election two years ago with 417 votes from among the local’s 27,000 members. Ferina contested that election, too, losing the secretary-treasurer race by a 375-to-125 margin.

MEMBERSHIP DISPUTED

Ferina, an aide at Newtown High School in Queens, brought two fellow stewards to the nominating meeting in mid-October, anticipating that his candidacy to represent 14,000 school aides would be challenged. He received a letter from the union’s election committee two weeks before the November 13 election advising him that Belinda Boyd, who nominated him, had “failed to submit a completed membership application” despite paying dues for seven years and voting in the last union election.

Susan Vignola, another aide at Newtown, said all aides at their hiring date complete the membership form, which is required to authorize dues deductions.

“People are upset—we go months without seeing anybody from the union,” she said. “Why are we carrying around union cards and having $17.90 deducted every other week? They’re grasping at straws because they’re fearful that Tony is gaining ground.”

Boyd was unavailable for comment, and Costa did not return calls to Labor Notes. Ferina appealed, although his move didn’t delay the election. He noted that local rules and AFSCME guidelines prohibit write-in candidates.

Ferina said he sought the executive board seat because the local has failed to protect aides who take students off school grounds, and to challenge part-time wages and benefits for aides who work full-time schedules. Two candidates for the school-aide chair, both Costa supporters, will face each other again in a run-off in coming weeks after deadlocking at 12 votes each at the November poll, Ferina said.

“Costa controls everything so there’s no wrinkle in the system,” he said.

Help Mexico Teach North Carolina About Unions

This action has expired

North Carolina is under new scrutiny for its poor labor standards, this time from a foreign government. Under a side accord in NAFTA called the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation, the Mexican government is challenging the state to implement collective bargaining rights for public sector workers. It has also requested a progress report on a recent inquiry by the International Labor Organization (ILO) into the state’s prohibition against bargaining.

Earlier this year, the ILO ruled that North Carolina’s failure to comply with “freedom of association principles...has resulted in grievous working conditions for many public sector workers.” It called on the U.S. to ratify and adhere to the ILO’s Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, which includes collective bargaining.

The campaign has brought together the Mexican trade union Frente Auténtico del Trabajo (FAT) and the United Electrical Workers (UE). Their challenge has garnered support from 53 co-signers, including community organizations and transnational labor groups like the global union federations for public workers and chemical, energy, and mine workers.

In North Carolina, Local 150 of the UE maintains a membership of 3,000. Composed mostly of low-wage workers such as janitors, garbage haulers, and groundskeepers for government offices, the union is fighting to change the law that deprives them of collective bargaining rights.

Help support coordinated efforts at the international and state levels by the UE, FAT, the Mexican government, and the ILO. A tax-deductible donation to support cross-border organizing projects can be made to the UE Research and Education Fund, One Gateway Center, Suite 1400, Pittsburgh, PA 15222-1416. For more information or to donate online.

The Loyal Opposition in New York's Teachers Union Collapses After Making Deal with Unity Caucus

— Marian Swerdlow

Recent elections in New York’s United Federation of Teachers -- the nation’s largest teachers union local -- marked a sea change in the union’s internal politics.

In the short term, no serious challenge is posed to the Unity caucus, an efficient monolith which has dominated the UFT for decades and rewards members with jobs outside the classroom. But in the long term, these elections may signal a revitalization of opposition to Unity within the UFT.

THE END OF ‘NEW ACTION’

The election results marked the fall of New Action, which had been the only major opposition group for twenty years, winning between 31 percent and 24 percent of the entire local vote (in 1991 and 2001, respectively). (Retirees can vote in UFT elections, and they vote overwhelmingly for Unity, which contributes to Unity’s consistent landslide victories.)

Despite Unity’s dominance, New Action almost always won the six executive board seats elected by high school teachers only. (There are almost 80 executive board members.)

In last month’s elections, New Action lost its six executive board seats and came in third among active members, behind the reform group Teachers for a Just Contract. Most of its long-time supporters voted for either TJC or ICE-PAC (a coalition of two groups, Independent Community of Educators and Progressive Action Caucus), or did not vote.

Unity garnered an unprecedented nearly 90 percent of the vote, and about 8 percent fewer members voted. It is likely these are both consequences of members’ perception that New Action was no longer a legitimate opposition.

NEW ACTION & UNITY UNITED

Why did New Action collapse? In late 2003, New Action announced it would not run a presidential candidate, stating “this is not the time for a divisive election campaign.” In return, Unity agreed not to run for the six high school executive board seats.

These cozy relations between the two groups were a recent development, and the cause of many members’ disillusionment with New Action. Under former UFT President Albert Shanker and his successor, Sandra Feldman, oppositionists were treated like pariahs. However, when Randi Weingarten became president in 1997, she began to reach out to New Action leaders.

The two groups started to converge when, in their first leaflet after the spring 2001 elections, New Action congratulated President Weingarten on her reelection. Weingarten responded by placing more New Action leaders on committees and adopting more New Action ideas. New Action literature and speakers increasingly supported Unity policies.

NEW GROUPS, NEW ENERGY

When the Unity-New Action deal was announced last year, TJC decided to run a presidential candidate to stop Weingarten from being reelected unopposed. They chose Nick Licari, a chapter leader for 15 years, as their candidate.

Meanwhile, several New Action leaders quit the group in protest over the “deal” with Unity. Together with other activists they formed Independent Community of Educators and allied with Progressive Action Caucus. ICE-PAC ran Marilyn Beckford, a chapter leader, who they described as “a strong union advocate with a parental perspective.”

Each of the two newer slates highlights ideas New Action downplayed or ignored. ICE-PAC emphasizes the connection between union reform and educational reform. TJC focuses on the need for a militant rank-and-file strategy to advance members’ interests.

Both groups have a deeper concept of union democracy than New Action did and both groups bring a much-needed infusion of new activists into the reform movement.

The two opposition slates ran joint candidates for academic high school vice president and the six high school executive board seats.

James Eterno was a New Action executive board member who broke with the group over the Unity deal and helped form ICE. He has now been reelected as a joint candidate of the new slates. He says that ICE plans to be an active force within the UFT at the delegate assembly, the executive board, and the school level. “In addition,” Eterno says, “ICE, as I see it, would like to be a think tank on educational as well as union issues.”

Licari, TJC’s presidential candidate, emphasizes the continuity between TJC’s election campaign and its ongoing work. “We ran to get our message out. Now we plan to use the additional contacts we made during our campaign to spread the word to even more members that we need a democratic, militant union to win a just contract.”

Marian Swerdlow is a UFT delegate from Franklin D. Roosevelt High School in Brooklyn and a member of Teachers for a Just Contract.