At the federal level, President George W. Bush wants to hand over about half of the federal civilian workforce - as many as 850,000 jobs - to the private sector.

Here in Minnesota, Governor Tim Pawlenty is using Minnesota's projected $4.56 billion budget deficit as justification to contract out more state jobs.

At all levels of government, services are under threat of being privatized.

The rhetoric in favor of privatization typically claims private contractors can save taxpayers money by performing work more efficiently. But privatization advocates repeatedly have blocked legislation to monitor contractors and prove whether savings actually exist, said Terry Rogers, national vice president of the American Federation of Government Employees, and head of the union's district that covers 35,000 federal jobs in Minnesota.

'It's not about savings,' Rogers said. 'It's about getting rid of federal employees.'

Misleading savings
Jim Monroe, executive director of the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees, bluntly calls the push for privatization a way to bust unions and reward campaign donors.

'The Republican Party at the state level is doing the same thing the Republican Party is doing on the federal level - paying back their contributors,' he said.

Pat Yozamp, assistant director of AFSCME Council 6, said research done by the Minnesota Department of Administration casts doubts that privatization provides long-term savings. Contractors often submit low bids initially, she said, then significantly raise rates once the state no longer has employees on the payroll. 'That's their own agencies saying that,' Yozamp said.

Monroe says outsourcing public work for short-term projects sometimes makes sense. But there are too many examples, he said, of Minnesota hiring long-term 'consultants' who work alongside state employees, but make twice as much in salary.

Pawlenty wants to change law
Peter Benner, executive director of AFSCME Council 6, said state law essentially prohibits privatizing state jobs 'when state employees are available to do the work.'

In theory, the statute means 'you can't privatize just by doing it,' Benner said. 'You have to undo other stuff first.'

But Pawlenty calls the law 'stupid' and says he wants it changed.

'We're going to be fighting tooth and nail to the death to stop that,' Benner said.

In anticipation of the fights to come, Shar Knutson, president of the Saint Paul Trades and Labor Assembly, is reviving the St. Paul Works! Alliance, which successfully fought former Mayor Norm Coleman's attempts to privatize the city's water utility and other city services.

'We need to clearly recognize that the current threat is real,' Knutson said.

'Shadow' workforce
Privatization, Rogers said, takes jobs off the public payroll, but doesn't mean taxpayers still aren't footing the bill.

Efforts to 'reorganize' the federal government eliminated 400,000 employees in the 1990s, Rogers said. Those civil service employees have been replaced by what he called a private, 'shadow government' - five times as many jobs than are currently in the federal civilian workforce, according to the Brookings Institution.

Rogers said federal employees do compete with private vendors in many cases, and win the work about 50 percent of the time, even though bidding rules 'don't favor in-house employees.'

Bush's unilateral action, he said, revises a federal policy that dates back to the Eisenhower administration and will make it impossible for employees even to bid to save their jobs.

McCollum wants accountability
The lack of accountability in contracting out government jobs disturbs Congresswoman Betty McCollum.

'While the stated goal of this move is cost savings, the administration has been unwilling to back up this claim with facts,' she said. Because private companies need to make a profit, she pointed out, they often achieve low bids only by undercutting wage, benefit and safety standards.

McCollum also raised fears of increased fraud and other bad behavior, especially because Bush last year eliminated 'responsible contractor' rules that could ban contracts with companies that have broken federal labor, employment, environmental, consumer, civil rights or tax laws.

'We don't do a good job of oversight now,' McCollum said. 'Why go forward and make more opportunities for possible fraud with our money?'

This article was written The Union Advocate newspaper, the official publication of the St. Paul Trades and Labor Assembly. Used by permission. E-mail The Advocate at: advocate@mtn.org

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