Privatization

Privatized NHS – More Questions Than Answers

October 5, 2014 Charlotte Dingle, www.occupy.com Educate! Corporatism, health, Health Care, Privatization

“I know I don't fit into their boxes so I have to adjust my answers to fit into their boxes, which makes me feel like I'm lying,” Johnson sighs. “And it's only going to get worse. They are now talking about introducing a new system where you are assessed online without ever seeing a real person!” So what does this very public failure say about the future of the main source of increasingly privatized healthcare, the National Health Service? John Lippetz of the Keep Our NHS Public campaign, says, “Atos, Serco, G4S – all these types of organizations have been proved to be inadequate in many ways. The outsourcing that goes on to these types of organizations is there to provide them with profit. That's all they're interested in.”

Harvard Students Ask To Cut Ties With Teach For America

October 2, 2014 Shafaq Hasan, www.nonprofitquarterly.org Organize! Education, Privatization, Teach for America

A dozen Harvard University students, members of the Student Labor Action Movement (SLAM), assembled outside a university building on Friday, September 26th, calling on President Drew G. Faust to cut ties with Teach for America unless the AmeriCorps program makes major changes to its organization. The group’s demonstration comes as part of a larger movement initiated by United Students Against Sweatshops, which holds that holds that Teach For America is working to privatize education through its relationships with big-name corporations that are threatening the sanctity of public education.

People Protest Plan To Privatize All Public Schools

September 26, 2014 Staff, www.PopularResistance.org Resist! Education, Privatization, Student Activism, Student protest

York students, educators and families are fighting against the plan by politicians to completely privatize York City public schools. Those involved with the rally included the employee unions, the York NAACP, and York Concerned Clergy. The Rev. Aaron Willford, a former member of the city school board, told YDR.com "The main message is to say no to those who (want) to charterize schools," adding that children shouldn't be "guinea pigs."York protest full charter is not a choice They held a rally protesting privatization on Sept. 17, 2014 and again on Sept. 24, 2014. YDR.com reports: "Some at the rally questioned the track records of the two operators being considered and decried the idea of bringing in for-profit companies to run schools. . . . Nikiyah Perry, a senior at William Penn Senior High School, said 'They say charters are here to give you choice, but if you take away the public school option what choice do you have?'

Sit-In At Chicago Mayor’s Office Over School Closing

September 24, 2014 Mike Klonsky, www.michaelklonsky.blogspot.com Resist! Education, Privatization, Student Protests

As I'm posting this, south-siders, CTU members and community activists from around the city are sitting-in outside the mayor's office demanding that Dyett High School not be closed. If Rahm and Byrd-Bennett carry out their plan to close Dyett and turn it over to private operators, they will leave Bronzeville, Oakland and Kenwood without a neighborhood public high school. Community activist Bob George writes from the sit-in: For three years now Dyett students have been without the courses, staffing and funding afforded “normal” High School. They are being phased out. Turned about. Taunted and tempted to attend alternative schools. Abandon your neighborhood school. Close the doors. Shut the windows.

Big Players Promote Water Privatization

September 8, 2014 Ellen Dannin, www.truth-out.org Educate! Detroit, Law, Privatization, Water

Americans used to take water for granted, but the water shutoff in Detroit has taught us all-important lessons. We now know that the private sector is willing to be ruthless in denying access to the most basic needs of living beings, and we also know that even those who have the least resources can also have power - if they are organized. Knowing these facts can prepare us all for the current fight over the privatization of water. Here are the basic facts as to the players and the events that are leading us to this water war. On May 21, as the Senate prepared to vote on the Water Resources Reform and Development Act of 2014 (WRRDA), Senator Boxer spoke on the critical roles the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) section would play. Said Boxer, We also have a new initiative to assist localities in need of loans for flood control or wastewater and drinking water infrastructure to receive those loans from a new funding mechanism we have named WIFIA, the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act. WIFIA will allow localities an opportunity to move forward with water infrastructure projects in the same way that TIFIA works in the transportation sector. Where there is a local source of funding to reimburse the federal government, the federal government can front the funds in order to speed up the process.

Thousands Protest Privatization Of British Health Service

September 7, 2014 Lin Jenkins, www.theguardian.com Resist! Healthcare, Privatization, Single payer health care, universal healthcare

Thousands of people on Saturday joined a protest against the privatisation of health services to mark the end of a 300-mile march organised by a group of mothers from County Durham. About 30 people took three weeks to walk from South Tyneside toLondon in the footsteps of the Jarrow Crusade of 1936 which highlighted unemployment and poverty during the Great Depression. Organisers said 5,000 people took part in the last leg from Red Lion Square in Holborn to Trafalgar Square, where they were addressed by shadow health secretary Andy Burnham.

Veolia Water Company Slams Into Detroit!

September 5, 2014 Jay Burney, www.climate-connections.org Educate! Detroit, Free Trade Agreements, Privatization, Water

The city of Detroit’s state appointed emergency manager has hired the notorious Veolia North America, the American subsidiary of the equally notorious Veolia Environment, headquartered in Paris. Veolia, one of the leading privatizers of water systems in the world and Veolia North America has colonized American cities, especially those located on the Great Lakes. The Company has been hired to “advise” the city on “how to find cost savings” in the sewer and water department. The city has now opened up bids on privatizing the water and sewer system in Detroit, which has been resisted for years. Wait, it only gets worse. The United States is in the middle of negotiating a trade deal with the European Union, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, aka TTIP, which could undermine communities ability to halt hostile privatizations efforts, hinder attempts to reclaim water systems from EU corporations and make it harder to hold private water companies accountable. Just what Detroiter’s that are already suffering human rights violations and access to water need! We see the future and it is here.

Veolia’s Sneaky Approach To Privatize City Water

August 27, 2014 Edward Ericson, www.citypaper.com Educate! History, Law, Privatization, Water

After Baltimore City wrested its water and sewage system away from the private Baltimore Water Company in 1854, the municipal system expanded and made improvements, so much so that by 1914 the city crowed about its “finest in the world” new sewer system in a brag book aimed at tourists and business owners. A hundred years later, a nonprofit corporate privatization watchdog that thinks the city is about to sell its waterworks to a private company is focusing attention on a tiny Baltimore contract to promote efficiency in the city’s troubled waterworks. Some city workers protested the contract—which has not yet been awarded—on August 13 at City Hall. “Project 1224, Procurement of Consultant Services: Water and Wastewater Plants Efficiency Study,” was advertised in early summer, drawing two “letters of interest,” the first step in determining who gets the contract. A French company, Veolia, and PA Consulting of the United Kingdom were the companies that submitted letters. Corporate Accountability International, a Boston-based nonprofit that has been bird-dogging water-privatization schemes around the world for 10 years, asked to see the letters and emailed local media to pitch the story. The group believes the city contract is the first step in a water-privatization scheme, and means to stop it.

Judge Says NC School Vouchers Are Unconstitutional

August 26, 2014 Politics USA, www.politicususa.com Educate! Charter Schools, Education, Law, Privatization

For the past decade, Republicans have been on a tear to blatantly transfer taxpayer money directly to private enterprises without regard for the needs of the people. Whether it is privatizing Medicare, Social Security, social services, or education, Republicans have devised various schemes to appropriate taxpayer money to profit their donors; including churches Hell-bent on inculcating Christianity in private religious schools at the expense of public education. One of the most important clauses in the U.S. Constitution is the General Welfare clause in Article I – section 8 that reads, “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States.” According to the Founding Fathers and first four Presidents George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, taxes providing for the ‘general welfare’ were to provide housing, food, medical care, and education for the poor among other domestic programs. In fact, one of the authors of the Constitution, James Madison killed legislation giving taxpayer money to churches anxious to profit from pretending to provide for the people because the Founders believed the government should never, never ever, give money to churches for anything; including education.

Latest Plan To Privatize Post Office Hits Unexpected Obstacle

August 14, 2014 David Morris, www.onthecommons.org Organize! Labor, Post Office, Privatization, Solidarity

The United States Postal Service (USPS) management just ran into a possible game-changing obstacle to its shameful pursuit of a fully privatized post office: labor solidarity. Here’s the background. For a decade the USPS has been aggressively shrinking, consolidating, and outsourcing the nation’s postal system. In July 2011 management upped the ante by announcing the rapid closure of 3600 local post offices, a step toward the eventual closing of as many as 15,000, half of all post offices in the nation. A groundswell of opposition erupted. Citizens in hundreds of towns mobilized to save a treasured institution that plays a key and sometimes defining role in their communities. In December 2011, after Congress appeared ready to impose a six-month moratorium on closures USPS management voluntarily adopted a freeze of the same length. In May 2012, the moratorium ended but management, possibly concerned about reviving a national backlash, embraced an ingenious stealth strategy. Rather than closures, management moved to slash hours at 13,000 post offices.

Protests As New Arm Of ALEC Is Announced

August 6, 2014 Candice Bernd, www.truth-out.org Resist! ALEC, Journalism, Politics, Privatization, Texas

Two grassroots activists from North Texas locked themselves inside the lobby of the Hilton Anatole in Dallas, Thursday morning, as another two dropped a banner from the upper stories of the hotel to greet lawmakers and corporate officials gathered for the 41st annual meeting of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Protesters Whytney Blythe and Joshua Carmona were removed by hotel security, within about an hour after they chained themselves inside, and released without charges. State legislators and corporate lobbyist members from across the country will sit on task forces designed to review and vote on conservative "model" legislation that will likely travel from the Dallas Hilton Anatole's luxury conference rooms to official state house chambers, as lawmakers often pass off ALEC model bills as their own. ALEC has generated legislation that advances the interests of its corporate members throughout state legislatures in the United States, as has been well documented, by organizations such as the Center for Media and Democracy. More than 98 percent of the organization's funding comes from corporations and corporate foundations, with the infamous petrochemical billionaire brothers, Charles and David Koch of Koch Industries, serving as some of the organization's largest donors.

A RAD-ical Housing Experiment

August 4, 2014 Rebecca Burns, www.inthesetimes.com Educate! Baltimore, Housing, Privatization, Public Housing

After decades of decay, public housing in the United States could soon be relegated to the dustbin of history, thanks to a new Obama administration initiative called the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program. A pilot launched last year in response to a $26 billion backlog in needed repairs, RAD will hand over 60,000 units of public housing nationwide to private management by 2015. Though that’s only a fraction of the nearly 1.2 million public housing units that provide a safety net for more than 2 million people, housing advocates worry that RAD’s reforms are a Trojan horse for sweeping privatization of a crucial public asset. In the wake of the Great Depression, a surge of tenant activism helped usher in public housing as a federally funded, locally administered program to address poor living conditions in urban areas. But the program came to be viewed less as a public good and more as housing of last resort, giving rise to a cycle of demonization and neglect, followed by pernicious “reforms.” RAD is the latest in a series of initiatives to address the underfunding of public housing with a familiar free-market solution: handing off state-owned assets to private actors who receive public subsidies in exchange for an increasingly involved role in managing housing for low-income tenants. Though public housing residents have been assured that RAD will fund long-overdue repairs while keeping housing affordable and preserving tenants’ rights, similar promises have been broken by would-be free-market saviors before. Critics say RAD shares key features with past privatization initiatives that have displaced hundreds of thousands of public-housing residents. In the last decade and a half alone, more than 100,000 units of public housing have been lost to demolition or sale.

Push Back Against Privatization Of Postal System

August 4, 2014 David Morris, www.alternet.org Resist! boycott, Labor, Postal Service, Privatization

The United States Postal Service (USPS) management just ran into a possible game-changing obstacle to its shameful pursuit of a fully privatized post office: labor solidarity Here’s the background. For a decade the USPS has been aggressively shrinking, consolidating, and outsourcing the nation’s postal system. In July 2011 management upped the ante by announcing the rapid closure of 3600 local post offices, a step toward the eventual closing of as many as 15,000, half of all post offices in the nation. A groundswell of opposition erupted. Citizens in hundreds of towns mobilized to save a treasured institution that plays a key and sometimes defining role in their communities. In December 2011, after Congress appeared ready to impose a six-month moratorium on closures USPS management voluntarily adopted a freeze of the same length. In May 2012, the moratorium ended but management, possibly concerned about reviving a national backlash, embraced an ingenious stealth strategy. Rather than closures, management moved to slash hours at 13,000 post offices. That could be accomplished quickly. Reduction in hours, unlike outright closures, requires little justification. Appeals are limited. Moreover a reduction in hours doesn’t generate the same level of outrage as a closure. The building remains open even though its value to the community is dramatically diminished.

Corporations Creating Life-Threatening Water Shortage

August 3, 2014 Carl Gibson, www.occupy.com Educate! Corporatism, Privatization, Water

Imagine the swift and fierce government response if Al-Qaeda took a precious resource out of a delicate environment, sold it for profit and endangered 40 million people in the process. Now compare that example to the nonexistent government response to American energy companies, golf courses and corporations like Nestlé taking 75 percent of the groundwater out of the Colorado River Basin at a time when the American West is facing a record drought. Corporations will continue to abuse their constitutional protections as legal “persons” until fresh water has become fully privatized, or until corporate constitutional rights are eliminated with a constitutional amendment. Depleting a Precious Resource Nestlé has two plants on the Colorado River Basin that take in water to bottle and sell under its Arrowhead and Pure Life brands. One is in Salida, Colorado, on the eastern edge of the Upper Basin; the other is in the San Gorgonio Pass, halfway between San Bernardino and Indio, Calif., on the western edge of the Lower Basin. According to annual reports filed up to 2009, Nestlé bottles between 595 and 1,366 acre-feet of water per year – enough to flood that many acres under a foot of water – from the California source. The company takes 200 additional acre-feet per year from the Colorado source. This means altogether Nestlé is draining the Colorado River Basin of anywhere from 250 million to 510 million gallons of water per year, according to the acre-feet-to-gallons conversion calculator.

USDA Plans To Privatize Poultry Inspection

August 1, 2014 Food & Water Watch, www.foodandwaterwatch.org Resist! Food and Agriculture, health, Privatization, Regulation

“Today, the U.S. Department of Agriculture released the final rule that will transfer most poultry inspection from government inspectors to the companies so they can police themselves. With the poultry industry standing to gain financially due to increased production and fewer regulatory requirements, the plan is a gift from the Obama administration to the industry, one that will undermine consumer and worker safety, as well as animal welfare. “One of the changes that has been made to the original proposed rule is to cap the line speed in chicken slaughter facilities at 140 birds per minute, instead of 175 birds per minute. This is not a meaningful victory because there are not accompanying worker safety regulations to deal with the musculoskeletal disorders and other work-related injuries that both the plant workers and USDA inspectors suffer every day working in the poultry slaughter plants. In addition, the one USDA inspector left on the slaughter line under this new rule will still have to inspect 2.33 birds every second – an impossible task that leaves consumers at risk. “The change in regulations was first proposed in January of 2012, but after strong opposition from consumer organizations, worker safety advocates and animal welfare groups, its implementation was delayed. When the comment period closed on the proposed rule, USDA had received over 175,000 public comments – most of them opposed to the proposal.

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