Privatization

Local Veterans, Workers Call Out Union Busting At VA

November 17, 2020 Union Advocate. Resist! Labor Unions, Privatization, Trump Administration, Veterans Administration

Local veterans and union members who staff the Minneapolis VA Hospital have been publicly calling out the Trump administration in recent months for understaffing in VA facilities and a string of attacks on VA workers’ rights. Members of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents about 260,000 VA workers, have rallied and demonstrated relentlessly at the busy intersection of Hiawatha Avenue and Highway 62, near the hospital. Their events are drawing support from activists in the Minnesota chapter of Veterans for Peace.

Welsh Government Announces Nationalisation Of Rail Service

October 24, 2020 The Canary. Create! Privatization, Public transportation, Trains, Wales

The Welsh government has decided to nationalise its railways following a significant drop in passenger numbers because of coronavirus (Covid-19). The country’s transport minister Ken Skates said bringing day-to-day rail services for its Wales and Borders franchise under public control would help secure the future of passenger services and protect jobs. Private firm KeolisAmey, a joint venture between French transport giant Keolis and Amey, has run the franchise in Wales for just two years after taking it over from Arriva Trains Wales.

New Global Campaign – Nestle’s Troubled Waters

October 20, 2020 Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation, Popular Resistance. Resist! Nestle, Privatization, Water

Evart is taking center stage in North America’s “water wars” as local advocates demand that Nestlé Waters North America revert its claimed rights to the White Pine Springs back to the public trust. These springs, a source for Ice Mountain’s bottled water brand, have long been subject to community opposition due to the company’s legacy of broken promises, ecological harm, and removal of our most precious public resource: our water. Nestlé Waters’ announcement last summer that it is considering the sale of its bulk bottled water business...

IMF Seizes On Pandemic For Privatization In 81 Countries

October 16, 2020 Alan Macleod, Mintpress News. Educate! Austerity, COVID-19, IMF, Privatization

The enormous economic dislocation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic offers a unique opportunity to fundamentally alter the structure of society, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) if using the crisis to implement near-permanent austerity measures across the world. 76 of the 91 loans it has negotiated with 81 nations since the beginning of the worldwide pandemic in March have come attached with demands that countries adopt measures such as deep cuts to public services and pensions — measures that will undoubtedly entail privatization, wage freezes or cuts, or the firing of public sector workers like doctors, nurses, teachers and firefighters.

California Is Ready To Pilot A Postal Banking Solution

October 14, 2020 Thomas M. Hanna and Jeff Olson, The Hill. Create! California, Postal Banking, Privatization, US Postal Service

The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is under attack and at grave risk. But with that many Americans are awakening to both the value of the USPS and the manifest dangers of privatization. The crisis has also sparked renewed interest in postal banking, a win-win approach that could both make the USPS more financially resilient and provide badly needed financial services to tens of millions of Americans. Over the past several months, this constitutionally enshrined and highly-regarded public institution has been sabotaged from both within and without.

The MEC Saga Shows That Canada Needs More Co-operation

October 10, 2020 Kevin Harding, The Tyee. Educate! Canada, Cooperatives, Local Economy, Privatization

The campaign to “Save MEC” — Mountain Equipment Co-op — has rallied more than 140,000 Canadians together to save a business that is being sold to an American private equity firm. But this grassroots and groundswell campaign wasn’t about saving a retailer; it was about saving a co-op. In fighting for a member-owned, democratic business, the campaign tapped into a passion in Canadians for co-operation. That passion, which drove thousands of people to engage on social media, sign petitions, demand support from banks and donate more than $100,000 to a legal fund to challenge the sale of the co-op, proves that what Canada needs is not another American-owned store but more co-operation — more of doing business in a different way.

Flint-Linked Veolia Merger Brings Water Privatization Closer To ‘Global Reality’

October 8, 2020 Alan Macleod, Mintpress News. Educate! Flint, Privatization, Veolia, Water

Veolia, one of the world’s largest private water corporations, has just announced the acquisition of 29.9 percent of Suez Water, another of the planet’s largest multinationals, with a plan to gain full control at a later date. Based in France, Veolia already employs nearly 100,000 people worldwide, and this deal is set to greatly expand that. In order to get around French anti-monopoly laws, Suez will continue to operate in France, but Veolia will take over its operations around the world, including in the United States. The company’s CEO, Antoine Frérot, has presented the move as a triumph for the environment.

The US Postal Service Is A National Asset

September 30, 2020 Max B. Sawicky, CEPR. Create! 2020 Elections, Postal Banking, Privatization, US Postal Service

The financial problems of the United States Postal Service (USPS) are the result of misguided policy decisions — some of them long-standing — not declines in first-class mail, its primary source of revenue. With the increased demands of voting by mail in a national election and a boom in home package delivery, the pandemic makes a well-resourced postal service more important than ever. Nostrums about the public debt have contributed to a decades-long, bipartisan attack on the US public sector, including the postal service.

As The Veteran Suicide Crisis Persists, Washington Turns To Snake Oil And Swamp Creatures

September 30, 2020 Jasper Craven and Suzanne Gordon, Battle Borne. Educate! Privatization, suicide, Veterans, Veterans Administration

In mid-August, former Veterans Affairs (VA) Secretary Anthony Principi (2001-2005) worked to get a number of fellow former VA chiefs to sign on to a draft Op-Ed encouraging the House to take up a Senate-passed suicide prevention bill —S. 785: The Commander John Scott Hannon Veterans Mental Health Care Improvement Act. The seemingly innocuous legislation actually represents a major step towards privatizing veterans’ mental health care. It will give the VA Secretary broad authority to award $174 million in grants up to $750,000 in size to private sector programs that ostensibly enhance veterans’ mental health and reduce veteran suicide.

Reclaim Public Medicine For Public Health

September 21, 2020 PublicMedicines.org. Create! Big Pharma, health, Medicines, Privatization

Far too many people have suffered and died because our medicines and medical products system was not prepared to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic with prompt and universal access to reliable tests, treatments, and vaccines. Governments, non-profits, and industry in the U.S. and around the world are working furiously to catch up. But their efforts have been hampered by fundamental flaws in our profit-driven pharmaceutical industry. For Americans with diabetes, cancer, asthma, infectious diseases, mental illnesses, and a myriad of other health issues, those flaws have been causing suffering and even death for decades.

New Report: Private Health Insurers Overpay Hospitals

September 19, 2020 the Rand Corporation. Educate! Health Care, Medicare, Medicare for all, Privatization

Prices paid to hospitals nationally during 2018 by privately insured patients averaged 247% of what Medicare would have paid, with wide variation in prices among states, according to a new RAND Corporation study. Some states (Arkansas, Michigan, and Rhode Island) had relative prices under 200% of Medicare, while other states (Florida, Tennessee, Alaska, West Virginia, and South Carolina) had relative prices that were above 325% of Medicare. The study notes a steady increase in hospital prices, rising to the 2018 average level from an average of 224% of Medicare costs in 2016 and 230% of Medicare costs in 2017.

Are Postal Service Cuts Motivated By Voter Suppression, Privatization Or Both?

August 25, 2020 Sarah Anderson and Scott Klinger, Inequality. Educate! 2020 Elections, Neoliberalism, Postal Service, Privatization

Throughout its 245-year history, the Postal Service has persevered through rain, snow, heat, the gloom of night, and even a global pandemic to serve the American people. But now this vital public service is under attack from within. In the course of two short months, a new Postmaster General has dramatically slowed the mail by banning overtime pay, dismantling mail sorting machines, removing mailboxes, and other service cuts. Given the overwhelming public support for the Postal Service, the U.S. government is unlikely to be able to get away with selling it off through public stock offerings as some other nations have done. Private corporations are unlikely to be interested in buying USPS lock, stock, and barrel anyway. The private carriers UPS and FedEx would be most interested in acquiring more of the public agency’s lucrative and growing package business. They don’t need legislative or executive action. They just need USPS to drive away their own customers by slowing deliveries and jacking up rates.

US Postal Service Employees Ordered Not To Speak To Press

August 23, 2020 Sarah K. Burris, The New Civil Rights Movement. Educate! Censorship, Media, Privatization, US Postal Service

While the U.S. Postal Service is under attack, everyone from letter carriers to union chairs and those working behind the doors in processing facilities has sounded the alarm about what they’re seeing from the top as part of the intentional mail slow down. VICE News reported Thursday that USPS staff were sent a letter telling them that they can’t talk to the press under any circumstances. The memo, dated Aug. 14, explains what staff should do if contacted, but it also says that if customers are asking questions, then employees should be “suspicious.”

After Cutting Ties With Police, Minneapolis Schools Quietly Hire Private Police

July 23, 2020 By Susan Du, City Pages. Educate! Education, Police in Schools, Privatization, Schools

On Sunday, more than 100 Minneapolis teachers and families rallied in the parking lot outside the Davis Center, the district headquarters, to protest the hiring – without prior warning – of what they suspect will be “rent-a-cops” with even less accountability than licensed police officers. “When we said we didn’t want any more SROs, any more police officers in our buildings, we did not mean, 'hire a bunch of private security officers and put them in our buildings,'” said MFT president Greta Callahan, a teacher at Bethune Community School in Near North. “Let me ask you a question. If I order a sandwich, and I say, ‘Hold the mayo,’ does that mean put a bunch of Miracle Whip all over it? They’re missing the point.” The teachers’ union asked concerned students and parents to call the district with two demands: stop the PSSS hiring process, and involve the public on how school security will be reconstructed.

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