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No Money Saved in Texas Privatization Scheme
A state auditor's report shows that Texas hasn't saved any money at all in the privatization experiment that began a year ago when the Health and Human Services Commission put a corporation in charge of its human resource and payroll services.
The report, released this week, is a powerful weapon for state workers in Texas represented by CWA who are fighting off an attempt to privatize the state's social services eligibility system - replacing walk-in centers easily accessed by the poor with call centers that would do business by phone and mail.
"It's common in the labor movement to talk about losing jobs when you talk about privatization," said Mike Gross, vice president of Local 6186, the Texas State Employees Union-CWA. "But just as important is the question of what is the quality of services to the people of Texas?"
For state employees, Local 6186 President Judy Lugo says the answer is that privatization - aside from saving no money - has meant chaos in personnel record-keeping. For food stamp, welfare, Medicaid and other federally funded social services. She said it will mean fewer people, including children, will get help: Instead of walking into a center and talking to someone face-to-face, in English or Spanish, applicants will have to find a phone, compile and mail a stack of documents and have an address where correspondence and aid could be sent.
If the audit and the strong editorials it's prompted from state newspapers fail to persuade state lawmakers, Congress may deal its own blow soon. Urged by CWA, AFSCME and other unions, Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) successfully attached an amendment to the pending $100 billion agriculture bill that would bar most food stamp privatization in all states. The amendment is not in the House version of the bill but CWA leaders and members are pushing representatives to include it when the legislation comes before a conference committee.
After contact from CWA lobbyists, two members of Congress wrote a letter to Representative Henry Bonilla (R-Texas), who chairs the subcommittee on agriculture of the House Appropriations Committee, urging him to keep the Senate amendment. "Public administration of the food stamp program is effectively serving those in need as a result of recent disasters, proving that the program is well served in public hands," Representatives Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) and Joe Baca (D-Calif.) wrote.
To build support for the amendment among critical House members, CWA's legislative office coordinated with CWA Local 7219 President Chet Nettlestad and the union's political coordinator in Minnesota, Jim Meyer. They persuaded Representatives Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee, and Joe Baca (D-Calif.), ranking member of the agriculture subcommittee that handles food stamps, to take a stand for the amendment in a letter to Representative Henry Bonilla (R-Texas), who chairs the subcommittee on agriculture of the House Appropriations Committee. "Public administration of the food stamp program is effectively serving those in need as a result of recent disasters, proving that the program is well served in public hands," the letter stated.
Lugo said her members are writing and calling Bonilla's office as well, and also calling state legislators, urging them to put pressure on Bonilla.
The report, released this week, is a powerful weapon for state workers in Texas represented by CWA who are fighting off an attempt to privatize the state's social services eligibility system - replacing walk-in centers easily accessed by the poor with call centers that would do business by phone and mail.
"It's common in the labor movement to talk about losing jobs when you talk about privatization," said Mike Gross, vice president of Local 6186, the Texas State Employees Union-CWA. "But just as important is the question of what is the quality of services to the people of Texas?"
For state employees, Local 6186 President Judy Lugo says the answer is that privatization - aside from saving no money - has meant chaos in personnel record-keeping. For food stamp, welfare, Medicaid and other federally funded social services. She said it will mean fewer people, including children, will get help: Instead of walking into a center and talking to someone face-to-face, in English or Spanish, applicants will have to find a phone, compile and mail a stack of documents and have an address where correspondence and aid could be sent.
If the audit and the strong editorials it's prompted from state newspapers fail to persuade state lawmakers, Congress may deal its own blow soon. Urged by CWA, AFSCME and other unions, Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) successfully attached an amendment to the pending $100 billion agriculture bill that would bar most food stamp privatization in all states. The amendment is not in the House version of the bill but CWA leaders and members are pushing representatives to include it when the legislation comes before a conference committee.
After contact from CWA lobbyists, two members of Congress wrote a letter to Representative Henry Bonilla (R-Texas), who chairs the subcommittee on agriculture of the House Appropriations Committee, urging him to keep the Senate amendment. "Public administration of the food stamp program is effectively serving those in need as a result of recent disasters, proving that the program is well served in public hands," Representatives Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) and Joe Baca (D-Calif.) wrote.
To build support for the amendment among critical House members, CWA's legislative office coordinated with CWA Local 7219 President Chet Nettlestad and the union's political coordinator in Minnesota, Jim Meyer. They persuaded Representatives Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee, and Joe Baca (D-Calif.), ranking member of the agriculture subcommittee that handles food stamps, to take a stand for the amendment in a letter to Representative Henry Bonilla (R-Texas), who chairs the subcommittee on agriculture of the House Appropriations Committee. "Public administration of the food stamp program is effectively serving those in need as a result of recent disasters, proving that the program is well served in public hands," the letter stated.
Lugo said her members are writing and calling Bonilla's office as well, and also calling state legislators, urging them to put pressure on Bonilla.