WHEREAS:
Public workers continue to be the backbone of federal, state, county, and municipal governments, providing essential services needed by citizens in good times and bad; and

WHEREAS: 
The public has a right to expect honest, efficient public service workers, who are responsive to citizens’ needs, provide services fairly, and provide services without regard to profits, political goals, or personal gain; and

WHEREAS:
Right-wing politicians continue to use privatization to circumvent civil service systems, due process protections, sunshine laws, and other crucial safeguards which ensure honest and open government; these same unscrupulous politicians continue to use privatization to reward their corporate friends with contracts, while trying to take away public workers’ jobs, rights, union contracts, and political power; and

WHEREAS:
Privatization often replaces family-sustaining jobs with jobs of lower pay and diminished benefits, without improvement in the quality of services; and

WHEREAS:
Privatization supporters are intellectually dishonest in their predictions of cost savings, which do not stand up to scrutiny, and frequently turn out to be based more on ideology and wishful thinking than on fact. Privatization often means major cost overruns and quality problems; and

WHEREAS:
Privatization problems are not confined to specific sectors or states, but occur across the country, in the provision of information technology, social services, corrections, schools, general government, water and wastewater, transportation, health care, mental health, federal government services, and others; and

WHEREAS:
Estimates in such sources as Governing Magazine put the total volume of privatization at “between 15 and 20 percent of all state spending,” and indicate that it “adds up to a total that may be in excess of $200 billion” per year, but the same sources indicate that there is a chronic lack of oversight for privatized services.  A contractor’s association claims local governments spend about $300 billion a year on privatized services.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED:
That AFSCME continue to aggressively oppose privatization and outsourcing by exposing contractors and by educating the membership, elected officials and the general public about the problems related to privatization, and by working in coalitions with other concerned groups; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED:
That, where appropriate, AFSCME participate in joint labor-management quality initiatives or other similar partnership efforts to improve the quality and cost effectiveness of public services by developing and utilizing the expertise of public workers and by eliminating costly and outdated management barriers; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED:
That AFSCME continue to develop an aggressive communication strategy that underscores the value of public service and exposes the practices of private contractors; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED:
That AFSCME continue to advocate for strong laws and regulations that shine the light on privatization, that require ample and adequate oversight of privatized services, and that require state and local government to disclose and track privatization spending and projects in detail; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED: 
That AFSCME continue to lobby for the highest standards of cost-effectiveness, quality, openness, and honesty in public services, and hold private vendors to similar high standards; and

BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED:
That AFSCME continue to point out cases where private contractors fail to meet high standards, and to insist that in those cases, the contractors are held fully accountable for their shortcomings.
 
 
SUBMITTED BY: Robert McLinn, President and Delegate
Paulette Feld, Secretary and Delegate
AFSCME Council 24
Wisconsin